Those two ladies from Utrera

Twenty years ago, twenty. A monument. Thousands of people, I don’t know how many, but many. Artists such as Enrique Morente, Paco del Gastor, Pepa de Utrera, Fosforito, Gracia Montes, Estrella Morente, Marifé de Triana, Pepa de Benito, María Jiménez, Juana and Martín Revuelo, Miguel Funi, the Duchess of Alba among many others… Two sisters, Fernanda and Bernarda, forever united in bronze in Ximénez Sandoval Square in Utrera. Who wasn’t overwhelmed with emotion that afternoon, when the air thickened with the sound of Fernanda Jiménez “la de Utrera,” unmistakably plaintive voice filling the square!

There had been tributes and other fund-raising events to finance the monument to the two living monuments, a project organized by the veteran maestro Curro de Utrera. So much pain expressed through the human voice, and so very human, an almost unbearable lament. Bernarda was present that day, deeply and visibly moved, but Fernanda, one of the most revered and exalted singers in the history of flamenco, was not in condition to witness the unveiling of the monument. She would pass away 14 months later, in August 2006, leaving flamenco devotees orphaned of soleá.

What was it that Fernanda had, that radiated such depth with the unmistakable timbre of her voice? People speak of the mystery of the insufficiency of her delivery—the struggle and barely being able to achieve that sound—an original flamenco personality, brutally authentic always.

For some years I used to visit Encarnación la Sallago in Sanlúcar, another great cantaora. She adored Fernanda and would sing some of her things, but she always emphasized that what she sang por soleá were not cantes of Joaniquí nor of Serneta nor of anyone else, but soleá of Fernanda de Utrera.

"I remember them walking the streets of Utrera, talking to people about everyday things. The Utrera sisters had unique and absolutely individual voices; they didn't even resemble each other. Housewives without glamour. Favorite Daughters of Utrera and the province of Seville."

Bernarda was great, but in another way. Festera, a festive singer people say, yet there was little revelry in her singing: La alegría en mi paró, yo no tengo ya alegría, muerto está mi corazón. ( I have no happiness, my heart is dead) was a recurring verse of Bernarda’s that she sang to bulerías, communicating more angst than many others with more serious forms.

“The girls of Utrera,” a frivolous label for two ladies who bore the light that illuminates what others see only as darkness. They rejected the histrionic, as serenity served them better—pain barely contained. If Fernanda possessed the soleá, her sister gave us her bulerías, both short and lyrical forms, her tangos and the cantes of their grandfather Pinini. A catalogue of the noble cantes mastered by these two messengers of deep song, who located beauty within pain.

I remember them in the streets of Utrera, chatting with people about everyday things. The sisters of Utrera had unique and utterly personal voices—not even alike between themselves. Housewives with no glamour. Favorite Daughters of Utrera and of the province of Seville, Silver Medal of Andalusia in 1994, and Gold Medal of Merit in the Fine Arts, among countless other honors.

Fernanda and Bernarda de Utrera not only sang flamenco, they embodied it. Deep voices in communication that left an eternal echo in the memory of cante jondo. Traditional singing as family inheritance, a chronicle of life in the flamenco countryside of the lower Guadalquivir.