At the Feria de Abril in Seville with the courageous wife of the most audacious bullfighter

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Courtesy of Lidia Cabello and Juan Josè Padilla

Lidia Cabello and Juan Josè Padilla (photo Caterina Di Terlizzi)

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GettyImages photo

GettyImages photo

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GettyImages photo

GettyImages photo

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GettyImages photo

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Yesterday, after a folkloric week, the passionate lights of the April Fair, one of the most important international and popular festivals in Europe. In a Seville splendid as always, the Andalusians, after the bullfight on the bill at 18:30 in the very strict Plaza de Toros de la Real Maestranza, got on the carriages, along the course of the Guadalquivir, up to the Los Remedios district, south of the city. There they relived the celebration according to tradition, in a city populated by a dozen streets dedicated to the heroes of bullfighting, from Joselito El Gallo who was a child prodigy in the world of bullfighting to Juan Belmonte, nicknamed “the marvel of Triana”, a neighborhood birthplace and founder of the modern toreo.

The carousel chimes play and among the casetas, small and large fairground houses, they set off songs and dances in the Sevillana stylefour short couple dances of popular origin and belonging to the Andalusian tradition. It was originally a man-woman couple dance in which the game of seduction was predominant. The four sevillanas were associated with the various moments of falling in love: meeting, seduction, quarrel and rapprochement.

Flounces, frills and colorful polka dot enveloping fabrics envelop women of all ages, enhancing the mermaid bodies of yesterday and today, barely protected by the fringes of shawls embroidered with iris-colored flowers. A fleshy red rose fixes the hairstyles of the dancers flamencoheels and castanets rhythmic in unison, for the joy of men in jackets, ties, hats or traditional country clothing, even under the infernal heat, this week the maximum is 37 degrees.

During the days and nights of the feria, people celebrate drunk, but bullfighting is king. The matador Juan José Padilla known as “the Pirate” and his beloved Lidia Cabello arrive with a team of four. They are the princes of courage, the bullfighter and his wife, accomplices in danger.

She gets out of the sumptuous carriage first. Powder pink silk satin suit, shiny chestnut hair, beautiful “For many years we never went together to the Feria de Abril, because Juan bullfighted, there are many bullfights and life is difficult for an active bullfighter. There are the workouts, the thoughts, the fear,” she says, drinking Coca Cola with her hand intertwined with her husband’s and an unforgettable smile from Goya’s Maya.

Lidia and Juan met when she was 14, he was 17, not yet a bullfighter, just a baker’s boy. Every day Juan left the girl a sandwich as a gift, entrusting it to her future mother-in-law. A fragrant sandwich, fresh out of the hot oven, was enough for that boyish love.

Lidia is the courageous wife of the bullfighter considered the most audacious today. More reckless than him because, after the tragic goring suffered by her husband in Zaragoza – an infernal bull blinded him in the left eye – it was she who urged him to return to the arena. “I was ready to tell him that he should have retired while he suffered under the surgeon’s knife. When he woke up, I walked down the corridor that led me to his hospital room, but when I saw him he was able to say right ‘Nothing serious has happened my love, you have to get better soon because you’re going to tour in South America soon. I will go with you’. I had to support him, I know bullfighting is his happiness, I had to take away his happiness?”. A very sweet tear falls down Lidia’s face “The whole world told him to end his career and I alone encouraged him to come back, one-eyed and at the risk of dying, because I knew it was the fate he wanted”.

In 2018, Padilla announced his retirement from a 25-year career. “The truth is that he suffers too much seeing your man defying death and after he retired I was able to breathe again, my life changed. For good”. With nostalgia and pride Lidia tells pages of life. In love with her, wife, proud mother because her daughter Paloma of hers, hot blood like her parents, grieves her father’s leave from her bullfights.

Sitting at the table of a private Caseta, in front of a frozen carafe of Rebujito, white wine and gazosa, the words of matador Juan José Padilla intertwine with his wife’s stories, cheerful and not. “Fear always exists for us bullfighters: before, during and after the fight. But you can win and it is the duty of a matador to win. As? With physical and mental training. Physically you have to be strong, it helps you to have a clear mind in the way of a huge bull. Fear is important, it lets you know what you risk facing a 600-kilo giant. Not being afraid means not doing a good bullfight, not taking risks. If you are conscious of playing your life with the bull, you are afraid and you know you have to hide it as best you can. You are scared at first because you are aware of what you are about to do, when you win because you know that you will be bullied again soon”.

Juan José Padilla pinches his wife’s cheek and concludes: “A bullfighter is always a bullfighter, but now I’m happy to receive messages from Lidia and to go get her what she needs from the pharmacy, at the market.” Then the magnificent couple goes dancing, the pirate also dances flamenco, accustomed to dancing with death and seducing it, far from the thunderous arenas of ovations in her honor. Now that you live in the Pantheon of the muleta you can enjoy the party, Olè.