On his trip to Portugal he had an incident in Madrid. His partner from London, Marcela Sembrich, sang at the Teatro Real. Gayarre went to greet the great diva and was questioned by the businessman Rovira, with very bad manners. Gayarre did not admit this conduct and had a terrible altercation. The sour businessman intends to expel Gayarre from the place of his triumphs. Several people intervened, separating the contestants. Outrage spread in the music media, and the company was badly hurt.
Debut in Lisbon on November 6, 1882 with La Favorita . The usual success and the locations sold out in advance. Three months he sang, alternating with Porto. One night, when success was most enthusiastic, a beautiful bouquet of flowers fell on the scene. I took the Gayarre home. He saw that there was a small case among the flowers, where he found a beautiful gold ring with three stones: a ruby, a diamond and a sapphire. He never knew whose. That was the only ring Gayarre wore until his death.
At the beginning of 1883, the month of February, he went to N poles. Here he was in a trance of death. He drove the public crazy with La Africana . To celebrate his success, the golden youth of Naples gave him a banquet at Possilippo. They decided to return to N poles embarked. A humid and unhealthy draft affected Gayarre. He had caught malaria. Consultation of doctors. The gravity was extreme. His friends, the teacher Lago and the singer Enrique Labán, did not leave the head of Gayarre during the two weeks that the fever lasted. He reestablished himself in the nearby town of Torregreco. It is said that when he was about to die he made a promise to the Virgen del Pilar, to sing before her the first time he did so. Nobody knows if the promise was true, but his first performance was in the temple of Pilar, before the Virgin.
MEL