El amor brujo ([el aˈmoɾ ˈbɾu.xo], commonly "Love, the sorcerer" but more accurately “Bewitching Love”) is a ballet by Manuel de Falla. The libretto is by María de la O Lejárraga García, although for years it was attributed to her husband Gregorio Martínez Sierra. It exists in three versions as well as a piano suite drawn from four of its movements. Andalusian in character, its music includes the celebrated Danza ritual del fuego (Ritual Fire Dance), the Canción del fuego fatuo (Song of the Will-o'-the-Wisp) and the Danza del terror. Its songs are in Andalusian Spanish.

Manuel de Falla y Matheu (Spanish pronunciation: [maˈnwel de ˈfaʎa], 23 November 1876, Cádiz, Spain – 14 November 1946, Alta Gracia, Argentina) was a Spanish composer and pianist. Along with Isaac Albéniz, Francisco Tárrega, and Enrique Granados, he was one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century. He has a claim to being Spain's greatest composer of the 20th century, although the number of pieces he composed was relatively modest.

El retablo de maese Pedro (Master Peter's Puppet Show) is a puppet-opera in one act with a prologue and epilogue, composed by Manuel de Falla to a Spanish libretto based on an episode from Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. The libretto is an abbreviation of chapter 26 of the second part of Don Quixote, with some lines added from other parts of the work. Falla composed this opera "in devoted homage to the glory of Miguel de Cervantes" and dedicated it to the Princess de Polignac, who commissioned the work. Because of its brief length by operatic standards (about 27 minutes), its very challenging part for a boy opera performer (who has by far the most lines), and its use of puppets, it is not part of the standard operatic repertoire. Otto Mayer-Serra has described this opera as a work where Falla reached beyond "Andalusianism" for his immediate musical influence and colour and began the transition into the "Hispanic neo-classicism" of his later works.

Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( dee-AG-il-ef; Russian: Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, IPA: [sʲɪrˈɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf]; 31 March [O.S. 19 March] 1872 – 19 August 1929), also known as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, patron, ballet impresario and founder of the Ballets Russes, from which many famous dancers and choreographers would arise. Diaghilev's career can be divided into two periods: in Saint Petersburg (1898–1906) and while as an emigrant (1906–1929).

La vida breve (Spanish: Life is Short or The Brief Life) is a two-act, four-scene opera that Manuel de Falla composed between August 1904 and March 1905 in Spain. The libretto, written by Carlos Fernández-Shaw, is set in Granada and uses the local language, Andalusian Spanish. Unable to secure its premiere in Spain, Falla continued revising the score after moving to France. The premiere was given (in a French translation by Paul Millet) at the Casino Municipal in Nice on 1 April 1913. Paris and Madrid performances followed, later in 1913 and in 1914 respectively. Claude Debussy played a major role in influencing Falla to transform it from the number opera it was at its Nice premiere to an opera with a more continuous musical texture and more mature orchestration. This revision was first heard at the Paris premiere at the Opéra-Comique in December 1913, and is the standard version. Only an hour long, the opera is usually paired with another work in performance. For example, the English opera company Opera North gave an opportunity for it to be heard alongside Zemlinsky's Der Zwerg or Puccini's Il tabarro when they included among the short operas ('Eight Little Greats') which were performed in their 2003/2004 season. The complete opera is seldom performed today, even though its importance in the context of opera in Spanish is recognised and it was programmed for the reopening of the Teatro Real in 1997. However, its orchestral sections are often performed, especially the act 2 music published as Interlude and Dance, which is popular at concerts of Spanish music. (Fritz Kreisler in 1926 arranged for violin and piano the dance from this pairing under the spurious title Danse espagnole.) Indeed the opera is unusual for having nearly as much instrumental music as vocal: act 1, scene 2 consists entirely of a short symphonic poem (with distant voices) called Intermedio, depicting sunset in Granada; act 2, Scene 1 includes the above-referenced Danza and Interludio, with the latter ending the scene, i.e. in the opposite sequence to the excerpted pairing; and act 2, scene 2 begins with the a second and longer Danza (with vocal punctuation). The role of Salud is central to the action. It has been sung by, among others, soprano Victoria de los Ángeles, mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza, mezzo Martha Senn, and, more recently, sopranos Cristina Gallardo-Domâs and Mary Plazas.