The Community of Madrid declares zarzuela an intangible Asset of Cultural Interest

The Governing Council of the Community of Madrid approved on November 4, 2026, the declaration of the zarzuela as an Asset of Cultural Interest of the Intangible Heritage of the region. The decision is formalized in Decree 95/2026, of November 4, published in the Official Gazette of the Community of Madrid (BOCM) number 270 on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, in section I.C) Other Provisions, with the reference BOCM-20261110-42. The regulation takes effect from the day following its publication, that is, from November 11.

The decree is adopted at the proposal of the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sport, whose head, Mariano de Paco Serrano, signs it along with President Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and is based on articles 23 and 24 of Law 8/2023, of March 30, on the Cultural Heritage of the Community of Madrid. The text orders the publication of the declaration in the BOCM and on the Transparency Portal, notification to interested parties, registration in the Registry of Assets of Cultural Interest and in the Cultural Heritage Catalog of the Community, and communication to the Ministry of Culture.

A file with favorable reports and no objections

The procedure began with the Resolution of March 6, 2026, from the Directorate General of Cultural Heritage and the Spanish Language Office, which agreed to initiate the file. The processing accumulated these milestones:

• Publication of the initiation in the BOCM on March 24, 2026, and the opening of a one-month public information period.
• Unanimous agreement by the Plenary of the Regional Council of Cultural Heritage of the Community of Madrid, in the session of March 25, 2026.
• Express support from the National Institute of Performing Arts and Music, communicated on April 29, 2026.
• Favorable report from the Department of Musicology of the Complutense University of Madrid, dated June 4, 2026.
• Preventive registration in the registries with codes PI0031838 and RBIC-I-2026-000002.

The decree notes that no objections were presented, therefore the initial technical proposal was reiterated. The annex places the zarzuela within the scope of the performing arts defined in article 2.2.b) of the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, also included in Law 10/2015, of May 26, and in article 17.1.c) of the regional law. At the state level, the genre had already been protected since Royal Decree 134/2024, of January 30.

From the 17th-century court to the song of Madrid

The annex places the birth of the genre in the mid-17th century as a court spectacle at the Palacio de la Zarzuela, with works by Calderón de la Barca and musicians such as Juan Hidalgo or José de Nebra; El golfo de las sirenas (1657) and El laurel de Apolo (1658) were performed there. In the 18th century, the genre spread to corrales and theaters through the playwright Ramón de la Cruz and the musician Antonio Rodríguez de Hita, author of Las segadoras de Vallecas.

The restoration arrived in the 19th century: the opening of the Conservatorio de Música de María Cristina in 1830 and the 1849 premieres of Colegialas y Soldados and El Duende paved the way for the romantic zarzuela, led by Francisco Asenjo Barbieri with Jugar con fuego (1851) at the Teatro Circo. The Teatro de la Zarzuela was added in 1856. The document estimates up to 3,000 works of the Género Chico created between the 1880s and the early years of the 20th century—with titles such as La Revoltosa, La Gran Vía, and La Verbena de la Paloma—and more than 90 premiered by the Bufos Madrileños between 1866 and 1874.

Companies, theaters, and documentary archives

The file emphasizes that Madrid continues to concentrate the practice of the genre and cites the main current operators:

• Concerto XXI, directed by Fernando Poblete, with productions at Conde Duque, the Centro Cultural de la Villa, or the Teatro Auditorio de San Lorenzo del Escorial.
• Ópera Cómica de Madrid, active since 1985, and Ensamble de Madrid, with more than fifty recorded titles.
• Compañía Lírica L’Operamore, with an opera and zarzuela festival at the Teatro Amaya since 2022.
• Drao Producciones, created in 2008, promoter of Clásicos de la Lírica (2015), the Escuela Zarzueling (2025), and Zarzuela en los Comercios (since 2023).
• Compañía Lírica Ibérica (1990) and the Compañía Lírica Luis Fernández de Sevilla, with La Verbena de la Paloma at the EDP Gran Vía.

Among the programming venues are the state-owned Teatro de la Zarzuela, as well as La Latina, the Teatro Amaya, the Rialto, the Reina Victoria, the EDP Gran Vía, and the Teatros del Canal, joined in the region by the Teatro Auditorio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial, the Teatro Real Carlos III and the Auditorio Joaquín Rodrigo of Aranjuez, and the Teatro Salón Cervantes of Alcalá de Henares. The documentary archives are distributed among the Real Biblioteca del Palacio Real, the Biblioteca Histórica Municipal, the Sociedad General de Autores y Editores, the Biblioteca Nacional de España, the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid, and the Archivo General de la Administración.

Threats and safeguard measures

The decree recognizes that zarzuela occupies little space in Madrid’s calendars and lists the risks to its continuity:

• The aging average age of the audience.
• The low visibility of the genre due to an insufficient number of performances.
• The limited presence in the media.
• The lack of strategies to attract new artists.
• The non-existence of a definitive catalog of musicological and literary sources.

To correct this, the annex proposes cataloging all documentary and musicological funds, completing the recovery of the most important works by supporting the work of the Instituto Complutense de Ciencias Musicales, backing new recordings of the Madrid repertoire, and promoting the genre in the media.

The recognition is not merely honorary: it turns zarzuela into a protected asset with obligations of registration, safeguarding, and dissemination for the regional Administration, and provides institutional support to a genre that the decree itself considers a hallmark of Madrid’s identity. For readers, the declaration affects the programming of theaters and festivals, the conservation of scores and recordings, and the tourist and cultural narrative of the capital, which will be able to exhibit zarzuela as its own intangible heritage alongside its status as a representative state manifestation.

Source: Official Gazette of the Community of Madrid (BOCM), no. 270, November 10, 2026, section I.C) Other Provisions, page 191 (official reference: BOCM-20261110-42).