Matador - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A torero or toureiro (toˈɾɐjɾu) is a bullfighter and the main performer in bullfighting

Bullfighting

Bullfighting is a traditional spectacle of Spain, Portugal, southern France and some Latin American countries , in which one or more bulls are baited in a bullring for sport and entertainment...

, practised in Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, Colombia

Colombia

Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

, Portugal

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

, Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

and various other countries influenced by Spanish culture. In Spanish

Spanish language

Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...

, the word torero describes any of the performers who actively participate in the bullfight. The main one who is the leader of the entourage and who kills the bull is addressed as maestro (master) and his formal title is matador de toros (killer of bulls) but the word "matador" by itself is only used in English and never in Spanish. The term torero encompasses all who fight the bull in the ring (picador
Picador
A picador is one of the pair of horsemen in a Spanish bullfight that jab the bull with a lance. They perform in the tercio de varas which is the first of the three stages in a Spanish bullfight.The picador has three main functions:...

es and rejoneador
Rejoneador
Rejoneador is the name given to a bullfighter who fights the bull on horseback. The rejoneador shouldn't be confused with the picador, who is just an assistant of the matador...

es). The other bullfighters in the entourage are called subalternos and their suits are embroidered in silver as opposed to the matador's gold.

An alternative word for torero is toreador in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

(and in Bizet

Georges Bizet

Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...

's opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...

), but this term (older than torero) is not used in Spain

Spain

and seldom in Latin America

Latin America

Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

.

A very small number of women have been bullfighters on foot or on horseback, a recent example being Cristina Sánchez

Cristina Sánchez

Cristina Sánchez de Pablos was one of the first female bullfighters to gain prominence.-Career:Sanchez enjoyed international fame. She was successful at bullrings in Ecuador and Mexico and is one of the most well-recognized bullfighters at home...

. Female matadors have experienced considerable resistance and hostility from aficionados and other matadors.

Usually, toreros start fighting young bulls (novillos or, more informally in some Latin American countries, vaquillas), and are called novilleros. Fighting of mature bulls commences only after a special match, called "the Alternative". At this bullfight the novillero (junior bullfighter) is presented to the crowd as a matador de toros.

Bullfighting is not called or considered a sport but rather a performance art. There is no contest nor punctuation or classification.

Bullfighting historically started with nobles on horseback lancing bulls with commoners on foot doing helping jobs. As time went by the work of the commoners on foot gained in importance up to the point where they became the main and only act. Bullfighting on horseback became a separate and distinct act called "rejoneo" which is still performed although not as often as bullfighting on foot.

Bullfighting on foot became a means for poor people to achieve fame and fortune. When a famous torero was asked why he risked his life, he reportedly answered Más cornadas da el hambre ("Hunger strikes more painfully", lit. "Hunger gives more gores"). It is now common for a bullfighter to be born into a family of bullfighters.

Maletilla or espontáneo are those who illegally jump into the ring and attempt to bullfight. While the practice is widely despised, some, such as El Cordobés
El Cordobés
Manuel Benítez Pérez , more commonly known as El Cordobés , is a famous matador of the 1960s who brought to the bullring an unorthodox acrobatic and theatrical style.-Career:...

, start their career this way.

Matador de Toros

A matador de toros (lit. "killer of bulls", from Late Latin

Late Latin

Late Latin is the scholarly name for the written Latin of Late Antiquity. The English dictionary definition of Late Latin dates this period from the 3rd to the 6th centuries AD extending in Spain to the 7th. This somewhat ambiguously defined period fits between Classical Latin and Medieval Latin...

matare, "to subdue or kill", from Classical Latin mactare) is considered to be both an artist and an athlete, possessing great agility, grace, and coordination. One of the most famous matadors was Juan Belmonte

Juan Belmonte

Juan Belmonte García was a Spanish bullfighter, considered by many to have been the greatest matador of all time.-Life:...

(1892–1962), whose technique in the ring revolutionised bullfighting and remains the standard by which bullfighters are judged. The style and bravery of the matador is regarded as being at least as important as whether or not he actually kills the bull. The most successful matadores used to be treated like pop stars, with a matching financial income, cult followings and accompanied by lurid tabloid

Tabloid journalism

Tabloid journalism tends to emphasize topics such as sensational crime stories, astrology, gossip columns about the personal lives of celebrities and sports stars, and junk food news...

stories about their conquests with women. Currently, however, even top matadors earn less in real terms than their peers did in the 1960s, and mass media coverage is limited to a handful of matadors known as the "mediáticos" and which do not include any of the top bullfighters in Spain. The danger of bullfighting adds to the matador's mystique; matadores are often injured by bulls and 52 have been killed in the arena since 1700. One of the most famous bullfighters in history, Manolete

Manolete

Manuel Laureano Rodríguez Sánchez , better known as Manolete, was a Spanish bullfighter.He rose to prominence shortly after the Spanish Civil War and is considered by some to be the greatest bullfighter of all time. His style was sober and serious, with few concessions to the gallery, and he...

, died this way in 1947. This hazard is said to be central to the nature and appeal of bullfighting.

The American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

writer Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...

aspired to be a matador. His novel The Sun Also Rises
The Sun Also Rises
The Sun Also Rises is a 1926 novel written by American author Ernest Hemingway about a group of American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bullfights. An early and enduring modernist novel, it received...

has autobiographical elements and includes bullfighting themes, as do his short stories The Capital of the World and The Undefeated. He also wrote two non-fiction books on bullfighting, entitled Death in the Afternoon
Death in the Afternoon
Death in the Afternoon is a non-fiction book by Ernest Hemingway about the ceremony and traditions of Spanish bullfighting. It was originally published in 1932. The book provides a look at the history and what Hemingway considers the magnificence of bullfighting...

(1933) and The Dangerous Summer
The Dangerous Summer
The Dangerous Summer is a book written by Ernest Hemingway published in 1985, which describes the rivalry between bullfighters Luis Miguel Dominguín and his brother-in-law Antonio Ordóñez during the "dangerous summer" of 1959...

(1959).

In 1962, Hollywood producer David Wolper produced "The Story Of A Matador", documenting what it's like to be a matador. In this case, it was the late Matador Jaime Bravo

Jaime Bravo

Jaime Bravo was a Mexican matador during the 1950s and 1960s. Bravo was known for death defying style and numerous relationships with women and Hollywood starlets.-Early life:...

Picador

A picador is a bullfighter who uses a lance while on horseback to test the bull's strength and to provide clues to the matador on which side the bull is favoring. They perform in the tercio de varas which is the first of the three stages in a Spanish bullfight

Spanish-style bullfighting

Spanish-style bullfighting is called a corrida de toros , or fiesta brava. In traditional corrida, three toreros, also called matadores or, in French, toréadors, each fight two out of a total of six fighting bulls, each of which is at least four years old and weighs up to about Spanish-style...

. The shape of the lance or pica is regulated by Spanish law to prevent serious injury to the bull which was viewed as cheating in the past. The bull charges the horses in the ring and at the moment of contact the picador lances the bull in the large muscle at the back of the neck, and thus begins the work of lowering his head. The picador continues to stab the bull's neck leading to the animal's first major loss of blood. During this time, the bull's neck muscles do fatigue, however, as a result of the bull charging the picador's horse and trying to lift the horse with its horns. The loss of blood and exertion weakens the bull further and makes him ready for the next stage.

To protect the horse from the bull’s horns, the horse is surrounded by a 'peto' – a mattress-like protection. Prior to 1928, the horse did not wear any protection and the bull would frequently disembowel the horse during this stage.

French matadors will often use the battle cries "ole" (in France) "allons" to antagonise and aggravate the bull. Such a battle cry is said to instill in the chosen bull such a feverish sense of anxiety that the spectacle will become much more fiercely-contested.

Banderillero

The banderillero is a torero who sets the banderilla

Banderilla

Banderilla is a diminutive meaning small flag in the Spanish language and may refer to :*Banderilla in the English language most often refers to the colorfully decorated and barbed sticks used in bullfighting, as illustrated on this page....

s (lit. little flags). These are colorful sticks with a barbed point which are placed in the top of the bull's shoulder. Banderilleros attempt to place the sticks while running as close to the bull as possible. They are judged by the crowd on their form and bravery. Sometimes a matador who was a particularly skillful banderillero before becoming a matador will place some of the banderillas himself. Skilled banderilleros can actually correct faults in the manner in which the bull charges by lancing the bull in such a way that the bull ceases hooking to one side, and thereby removing a potential source of danger to the matador.

Costume

Because of the decorations and elaborateness on the costume, the Spanish call the toreador's outfit as traje de luces
Traje de luces
The traje de luces is the traditional clothing that Spanish bullfighters wear in the bullring. The term originates from the sequins and reflective threads of gold or silver...

, meaning the "suit of lights". Though undoubtedly flamboyant, matador costume structure provides great ease of movement.

Pop Culture and other references

In 1991, professional wrestler Tito Santana

Tito Santana

Merced Solis better known by his ring name Tito Santana, is an American professional wrestler whose heyday spanned from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, though he continues to appear on the independent circuit. He is best known from his time in the World Wrestling Federation...

adopted a Matador persona

Persona

A persona, in the word's everyday usage, is a social role or a character played by an actor. The word is derived from Latin, where it originally referred to a theatrical mask. The Latin word probably derived from the Etruscan word "phersu", with the same meaning, and that from the Greek πρόσωπον...

, including the nickname the "El Matador" Tito Santana and a "traje de luces" styled wrestling outfit.

The codename "Operation Matador

Operation Matador

Operation Matador may refer to:*Operation Matador , a proposed plan to counter any Imperial Japanese perceived threat to British Malaya*Operation Matador , a Burma campaign operation during World War II...

" was used no less than six times by various armies and intelligence agencies.

External links

"Haunted By The Horns", (2006) An ESPN online article about Matador Alejandro Amaya and Matador Eloy Cavazos
Eloy Cavazos
also known as "The Little Giant"Born: August 25, 1949, Ciudad Guadalupe, Nuevo León, México.Resides in Guadalupe, Nuevo León, a suburb of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon México...

. The article investigates why a matador chooses their profession.
"Boutique del Torero", Tienda online articulos taurinos, somos fabricantes de capotes. Boutique del Torero.
Female Matadors: A Fierce Beauty - slideshow by Life magazine