In Seville, major celebrations are always celebrated with great vespers, and the Immaculate Conception is no exception. On the contrary. The atmosphere of joy was palpable in broad daylight with the streets full of people. Since the beginning of the afternoon, there were few … the corners of the old town where there were no tunos, great protagonists of a day where Seville realizes its cliché and its tradition its legend. The large gatherings of people who sat down to eat in any bar were pleasantly surprised to have musical entertainment like those of the veterans – since they all had gray hair – songs from the Aparejadores of the Triana market. A long day awaited them.
The striking but recognizable clothing of the tunos in the streets of the Center were joined in the afternoon by the almost one hundred and fifty people who made up the Tercio de Olivares parade, increasingly familiar to passers-by as it celebrated its seventh consecutive year. The colorful procession, which included rodeleeros, arquebusiers, pikemen and standard-bearers, as well as “civilians” dressed in 16th-century clothing, recreated what is known as the Miracle of Empel, an event that occurred during the Eighty Years’ War.
Its enthusiastic members commemorate the exploit of the Tercio Viejo de Zamora commanded by field master Francisco Arias de Bobadilla, who confronted and defeated against all odds a flotilla of one hundred ships of the rebels of the States General of the Netherlands. The Tercio began and ended its parade in the Plaza de Jesús de la Pasión, and the Triunfo was the culmination of its route. There, around eight thirty, a floral offering was made in front of the monument of the Immaculate Conception, undoubtedly the epicenter of the evening of December 7.
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The Santa Cruz neighborhood “with its magic light”, as the tunes of Peritos Industriales sang in the Plaza de la Alianza, was, like every year, another of the busiest enclaves on the eve of La Pourísima. All its streets and squares, and even its parish church, were the scene of representations of various tuna before and during the vigil in front of the neighboring monument of Coullaut Valera. The sound of the prickly pears under the tile of the Christ of Mercy was only interrupted by the triumphant ringing of the bells of the Giralda at half past nine, at the end of the vigil of the Immaculate Conception presided over in the Cathedral by the Archbishop of Seville, José Ángel Saiz Meneses.
Lots of people with tunos
On this occasion, the fruits of the time advance established a few years ago were particularly noted so that the prickly pears were more surrounded by the public in a time of progressive dispersion due to cold and other reasons. Far from it, the crowds gathered this year both in the Plaza del Triunfo and in the other places where the tunos sang confirmed the correctness of this decision and the interest that Seville continues to have in this tradition of the Immaculate Conception. There was no room for a pin in the narrow Santa Marta square at ten o’clock in the evening and the sixty members of the Tuna de Magisterio would have had an easier time entering by helicopter than through the access lane to the bucolic square where each year they delight the staff with their rendition of “Seville”, by Arturo Pareja-Obregón, a few minutes after having hosted the show with “Content Heart” by Marisol.
The earlier wake-up time and less cold attract more people to prickly pear night.
Larger is the space of the Plaza del Triunfo in which, one after the other, each of the fifteen tunas passed – one more than last year with the incorporation of Architecture into the Council of the Tunas – to offer their sounds and flowers to the Purity of Mary. Monsignor Saiz, who arrived with Ingenieros, the organizer of this edition of the vigil, accompanied them with a prayer in the first moments of the night in front of great expectations from prickly pear lovers and various curious people. The Archbishop, expert in harmony with all Sevillian traditions, donned a cape full of ribbons from one of the tunos and enjoyed inside a pleasant musical evening under the Murillo sky of the night of the Immaculate Conception.
Groups of people of all ages flocked between the bars of Mateos Gago, the monument and the adjacent streets all night long despite the cold, although less severe than other times. On some facades, the balcony windows shone, opened this year at the initiative of Tuna de Ingenieros, and which were so well received. The tunos continued to sing and clear their throats and Sevilla did not leave them alone. After centuries of defending the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, Sevillians cling to December 8 as they have not done for a long time. And many still have a long night of vigil which will end with an explosion of joy in Resolana.
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