• Caballero de Gracia, baritone
• A street-lounger, spoken part
• A housemaid, contralto or soprano
• The Elíseo, soprano
• Three thieves, two tenors and one bass/baritone
• Policeman, baritone

Orchestral material in revision, currently not available

Continuous string of lively and catchy numbers. The polka of streets and alleys, the Caballero de Gracia’s waltz, the servant-girl’s gloriously vulgar tango, the Eliseo madrileño mazurka, the sailors’ song: all of them little masterpieces.

Wandering through the city, a street-lounger finds himself in a sort of hospital waiting-room, in the company of the streets, alleys and squares of Madrid. Behind a door, the city is giving birth to La Gran Via, a grand new boulevard, to which, it is feared, many old parts of the town will be sacrificed. The Caballero de Gracia, one of Madrid’s main streets, appears; this conceited personage expresses the wish to contract a marriage with the new boulevard. A doctor announces that the birth is not immediately due. The Caballero the Gracia is then taken on tour of the city by the street-lounger; among the places they visit are suburbs, the docks, a dancing-place, the arena, a skating rink; they meet various colourful characters: a servant-girl, thieves, roller-skaters, sailors, policemen etc. In the end they return to the hospital. Suddenly the new boulevard is born. Such miracles only happen on special days such as this: the thirtieth of February. The spectacle ends with a procession to the music of the opening number.