Carmen Amaya Returns to Spain: A Flamenco-American Star on European Stages

In 1947, Carmen returned to Spain as a world-famous star. At Barajas Airport, she was greeted with flowers, surrounded by flamenco artists and members of the press (including NO-DO). Wearing a white suit, she stepped down the stairs of the plane and knelt to kiss the Spanish ground. The public had high expectations for the dancer who had risen from Barcelona’s humble neighborhoods to conquer America — and she knew that being recognized in her homeland would be the hardest challenge. The Spanish audience would demand more of her than any foreign crowd. “Whatever little I do, I do it with all my soul everywhere, but coming back to Spain means tightening my shoes a lot more,” she declared in a radio interview.

A month after her arrival, on September 19, 1947, she premiered at the Teatro Madrid. José de la Vega, a celebrated dancer and founder of the Barcelona dance school that bears his name, was in the audience. “The curtain rose and there was Carmen Amaya dancing to Ravel’s Bolero, descending a ramp on the left side, where a large drum awaited her. That staging I will never forget. We were used to painted backdrops with the Giralda, the Torre del Oro, tambourines, fans. We had never seen such a modern staging — it was something Carmen brought from America,” recalled the veteran dancer in the RTVE documentary series Imprescindibles, in the episode dedicated to her.

However, not all reviews were positive in those first encounters with the Spanish public. Not everyone understood her forward-looking proposal. As writer and historian Ramón Gubern explained in the same documentary: “When she came out wearing trousers, people shouted at her, mockingly: ‘Carmen, go back to New York!’” But she defended herself with her powerful footwork, her strength, and her unrestrained presence on stage. Her show toured several Spanish cities, including her native Barcelona — accompanied, no less, by the great flamenco singer Antonio Mairena.

She also began touring Europe, and just a year after her return achieved one of the milestones of her career and of flamenco history: her debut at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris. It was the first time a group of Roma artists performed on that legendary stage. Carmen’s family continued to grow within the company — in the French capital, her nephews Diego and Curro made their debut. Among the audience were notable figures such as Balenciaga and Christian Dior, and the press was full of praise the following day: “Carmen Amaya’s dance rises above art itself.” What was supposed to be an eight-day engagement turned into two months.

During that European tour, she met the love of her life, guitarist Juan Antonio Agüero, a friend of her brother-in-law, Mario Escudero. He joined her company as a guitarist, and not long after, during one of their tours, the famous conversation that led to their spontaneous engagement took place:

“I’ll never marry anyone in my life,” said Juan Antonio Agüero.

“Are you teasing me, making fun of me?” asked Carmen.

“Bet you won’t marry me,” said the guitarist.

“Bet I will,” she replied.

“All my family members were already married, and there I was, still single, holding on,” Carmen explained in an interview featured in Imprescindibles.

They were married on the morning of October 19, 1951, in the Church of Santa Mónica at the end of Las Ramblas, in an intimate ceremony. They remained together until Carmen’s death in 1963.