Copla (music)
Although the genre has a long heritage, it flourished in the 1930s and 1940s, and is epitomized by songwriters Antonio Quintero, Rafael de León and Manuel Quiroga.More recent singers of coplas include Rocío Jurado, Bambino, María Jiménez, Isabel Pantoja, Martirio, and Miguel Poveda and, even more recently, Pasión Vega, Clara Montes, Pastora Soler, Aurora Guirado, Diana Navarro, Pilar Boyero, Concha Buika, Montse Delgado and opera singer Plácido Domingo, who released an album of coplas entitled Pasión Española in 2008.The lyrics often feature marginalized characters, including prostitutes, sailors, escaped convicts, gypsies and so on, and have themes based on the "illegitimacy of all relationships outside the recognized heterosexual marriage" (i.e., mistreated women, abandoned children and extramarital affairs).[5] Because these were stories of love gone wrong, of women who crossed the line of sexual mores, and of men's honor, they used to be criticized for being old-fashioned and sexist.[6] However, more recently, modern performers have given the songs a new twist by "selecting coplas that vindicate a women's power, their independence and their passion."