The view from the sofa - my thoughts on
corridas I have watched on TV
31/03/2013 Cebada Gago – Luís Bolívar, David Mora &
Marco Leal
Another enjoyable
afternoon at the hands of Luís Bolivar, David Mora and Marco Leal with Cebada
Gago bulls.
The presentation of
Cebadas followed from the notable string of Torrestrellas with another set of
fine yet impressive animals, the grey fifth bull was particularly beautiful.
Their performance was varied yet interesting, a combination of the teasingly tough
bull (run in second place), the brave spectacular bull (run in third place) and
the noble bull (run in fifth place).
The afternoon’s best
faena came at the hands of David Mora. He was able to unlock the noble and
profound charge of the fifth bull and constructed a serious and meaningful
faena around these virtues. The bull’s initial charge was uncertain, but once
focused it had a repetitive and deep charge, Mora was able to harness the
bull's positive qualities and based his faena on pure and long derechazos. A
good sword thrust gave him an ear, which perhaps should have been two. I was
surprised at the lack of petition for the second ear, the faena had been
meaningful, but arguably lacked connectivity with the crowd; he was unable to
provide the pyrotechnics that Padilla has used so efficiently to reach the
crowd the day before, and this probably cost him the second ear. A pity. He
first bull was tough and uncertain, but Mora stood his ground and was firm,
such firmness cost him an ugly tossing, but showcased his strong mentality.
The corrida’s emotive
highlight was the tercio de varas performed by the third bull, called Lagarto.
Aside from the obligatory two pics, its matador, Marco Leal, subsequently
ordered it to be placed on the opposite side of the arena for two further pics
(given that the ring is elliptical, the first placement was across the width of
the arena and the second across the length of the same). Lagarto rose to the
challenge admirably charging on both occasions and vindicating the emotional
and aesthetic values the suerte de varas. A great tercio de varas of course
requires a good performance by the picador, on this occasion Gabin Rehabi stood
up to Lagarto’s test with bravery and composure (incidentally, I did not know
this picador before Sunday’s corrida, but there are some good videos of him
piccing on YouTube if anyone is interested). Of course, the lidia goes beyond
the pic, and the next test was to assess Largarto’s performance in the final
third – unfortunately, Leal was the corrida’s least experienced torero and
therefore we are left in doubt as to whether the poor conclusion was down to
the bull or the torero. It was a long faena marked by inconsistent toreo. The
bull’s charge seemed classless, but, on occasions, Leal was able to lower his
hand and extract a meaningful class. The overwhelming feeling was that Leal had
been unable to extract the bull’s bravura in order to construct a faena;
however, I would hasten to add that, perhaps, the bull had gained favour with
the afición after the tercio de varas and they were less willing to see the
difficulties posed by the bull in the final third.
Leal’s final bull was
clearly more complicated and, once again, the faena was characterised by
inconsistency. On occasions Leal was able to submit the bull to his toreo, but
all too often the bull passed him by and caused problems. It would have been
instructive to see his lot in more experienced hands. Leal also placed his own
banderillas and did so with the ease one would expect from a specialist matador
banderillero – they were not tercios that will live in the memory, but they
were perfectly pleasant for the present.
Luís Bolivar is a
torero that likes to cite his bulls from afar and has based his tauromaquia on
the Cesar Rincón tenets of distance, dominance and timing and he sought to
impose these on both of his bulls with mixed effect. His first faena was a
crescendo of series of right hand passes. The opening few series were of low
intensity and served to fix the bull on his muleta without overly overpowering
it; once this was achieved, he increased the intensity of the passes and
performed two very admirable and moving series of derechazos. An excellent
sword thrust (both in execution and effect) gave way to an ear. The fourth bull
was more uncertain and gazapón, the resulting faena, once again based around
cites from distance, was therefore more uneven and never developed as we would
have hoped. A satisfactory afternoon from Bolivar that, for its worth, did not
show any dimension that would lead us to believe that he is anything more than one amongst many capable, but
not brilliant matadors.
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