The bulls have it
Daniel Hannan
A good bullfight, or corrida, requires .t-Vthree ingredients. First, you need brave matadors. They must be willing to work next to the bull's horns, calculatedly drawing the animal as near to them as they can. They should eschew the various cheap tricks — rubbing the flat of your blade between the horns, swanking about with your back to the bull, thrusting your crotch at it after it has passed so as to make it look closer than it really is — which are substitutes for sincere capework. They must learn to keep their feet still when every nerve in their body is screaming at them to get out of the way. And, when they do move, it should be with the grace of a ballerina.
Second, you need fine bulls. They should be genuinely brave, not just angry, willing to keep charging even when they have suffered punishment; big, wide-horned and glossy, with powerful humps in their shoulders for tossing. Third, you need a discerning crowd, able to tell the difference between bravado and true bravery, and unwilling to overlook messy work from a matador who happens to be local.
Of the three. the most important are the bulls. Any doubt on this score was dispelled by the Seville feria, just concluded. For 14 successive evenings, some of the best toreros alive struggled to summon a spark of excitement from a series of insipid bulls. Then, on the last night, six magnificent Miuras rescued the festival.
The essence of the corrida is that a man is dominating the deadliest animal indigenous to Europe using nothing more than a scarlet cloth draped over a stick. More than this, he is doing so in a manner which is controlled, and therefore elegant. To see a matador make a deliberately dangerous pass is intoxicating; to see him have the same pass forced on him in self-defence is ugly. In order to work his magic, the matador needs a bull that keeps charging. The Spanish call this quality nobleza, and it is the root of every successful corrida. Without it, a matador cannot perform attractive work with his cape, nor kill elegantly.
Corridas typically involve three matadors, each of whom faces two hulls. The men I watched on my first night in Seville's Maestranza ring were as good as any in the world; Enrique Ponce, the supreme technical master of the craft; Julian Lopez, 'El Juli', the most celebrated bullfighter in Spain; and Cesar Jimenez who, for my money, is the best of the new generation — a little cocksure, perhaps, but dextrous and valiant. Yet even these could get nothing out of the worthless creatures put up for them.
It was the same story the following evening, and the evening after that, and the one after that. The bulls were weary, stale, flat and unprofitable. The Madrid critics called it a national disgrace; the Seville critics complained that things were getting as had as in Madrid.
Then, on the last night, a `Miurada., Miuras are the most famous breed of fighting bull in Spain. They have killed at least nine men in the ring. including Manolete, probably the greatest bullfighter of all time, in 1947. Such is their reputation that The Spectator's Low life correspondent plans to have their brand-mark tattooed on his head. You will sometimes read that Miuras are not what they were, that the fight has been bred out of them. This is partly, I suspect, because clever-dick commentators like to be counter-cyclical. At any rate, the beasts I saw last week were a credit to their line.
Not so the matadors who faced them. The first, Manolo Sanchez, was a disgusting coward. From the moment his bulls thundered out, tossing their great crowns, he was determined to go nowhere near them. He worked at arms' length, white with terror, and botched both his kills. You might think it is a bit rich for me, safe in my seat, to criticise a man who was risking his life. And you would be right. But remember that I was paying to watch Sanchez, not the other way around.
The second matador, Juan Jose Padilla, was not so obviously craven, hut his toreo has a vulgar, gimcrack quality which is almost worse. He is a preening man, with sharp whiskers and gorgeous suits: a sort of matador Flashman. Although he can nerve himself for the occasional impressive manoeuvre, he lacks manliness. The one thing which no matador can fake is the sword thrust, which obliges him to go in right over the horns. Padilla usually does this very badly, and then assumes an expression of Paxmanesque incredulity, as though to say, This bull's anatomy is wrong.'
For all this, though, there were electrifying moments. The most accomplished matador in the world can do nothing with a weak bull: but a noble bull can summon flashes of brilliance even from a poltroon. Fortunately, the third matador, Jesus Milian, was no poltroon. In fact, he gave one of the bravest performances I expect ever to see. He met both his bulls portagayola: that is, on his knees before the gate through which they entered the arena. Both times, he was trampled. Both times, he carried on, with frenetic, fantastic capework, drawing one bull closer and closer to his body until, inevitably, he was tossed. His trousers were shredded, but he borrowed a pair of jeans and carried on. I and 11,000 other spectators were down there with him in the ring. For the first and only time in more than 150 engagements throughout the feria, the corrida achieved that transcendent quality which it is almost impossible to describe without sounding florid: that sense that death is being cheated, and the natural order violated. No one, not even Hemingway, has done it justice on the page. But, if you see it, you will know.
You may well be asking why it is that good matadors are so often matched with poor bulls, and vice versa. The answer is that the most celebrated bullfighters are in a position to specify the terms on which they will appear. Owing to an understandable fear of disembowelment, they tend to ask for small, narrow-horned breeds which charge in straight lines and offer few surprises. The fiercest animals thus fall to men who must take any contract they are offered, or to new matadors who have yet to make their names. Consequently, you will often have to choose between famous bulls and famous toreros. My advice is to go for the bulls every time.
Tristan Garel-Jones, our taurine correspondent, returns shortly.
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