one of the most prolific and important chico composer-librettists, often collaborating with Joaquín Valverde Durán. His work includes El año pasado por agua ("Last Year Under Water"), Agua, azucarillos y aguardiente ("Water, Sweets, and Spirits"), perhaps the most popular nowadays, La alegría de la huerta ("The happiness of the orchard"), El arca de Noé ("Noah's Ark"), Los descamisados ("The Shirtless Ones") and more. Another common model for these works was comparison of two places: De Madrid a París (Chueca y Velarde, "From Madrid to Paris") or De Getafe al paraíso ("From Getafe to Paradise", a two-act zarzuela by Barbieri, Getafe is a town close to Madrid), Cádiz (Valverde). Other important playwrights were Giménez, Joaquín "Quinito" Valverde Sanjuán (Joaquín Valverde Durán's son), Tomás Lopez Torregrosa (San Antón and El santo de la Isidra ["Isidra's Saint", Isidra being one of the characters]) Fernández Caballero (El dúo de la africana [The Duet from L'Africaine, a reference to the opera by Meyerbeer], El cabo primero ["The Headman", that is, the person in command], La viejecita ["The Little Old Lady"], and Gigantes y cabezudos ["Giants and cabezudos"]; named after popular Spanish parade disguises), Jerónimo Jiménez (El baile de Luis Alonso ["The Dance of Luis Alonso"] and its sequel La boda de Luis Alonso ["The Marriage of Luis Alonso"]). One very important auteur was Ruperto Chapí, who spent his life oscillating between attempts to create a proper Spanish opera, and his modest género chico plays, which included Música Clásica ("Classical Music"), La revoltosa ("The Rebel Girl"), ¡Las doce y media y sereno! ("Half Past Midnight and all is quiet"), y El tambor de granaderos ("The Grenadiers' Drum"). Finally, one of the best-known examples of género chico was La verbena de la Paloma ("The Fair of the Dove", set at a verbena on the night of the Virgin of the Paloma, August 14) ;, by composer Tomás Bretón. This popular piece came about following several years of experiments by its creator. The género chico was to decline in importance with the turn of the 19th century. Performance venues The idea of performances by the hour began in cheap theatres, the Teatro del Recreo being the first. Whilst the critics were harsh with the genre, it was a great success with the public and was adopted by a few more theatres, to the point where it took over the Variedades theater, which the decline of comic opera had