It's Time for Floricienta

Can you believe there are only seven more chapters of Estancia Aldea Norteña to go? I'm very grateful for the readers who have faithfully followed along, as well as the three new copies of Trifles Light as Air sold after last week's guest post at Austenesque Reviews.

Today, though, I want to turn the focus back to telenovelas. We've already looked at Teen Angles and Passion of the Hawks. There's one more show I researched for Catalina's obsession, which I've already mentioned in a previous chapter but will become more important with this week's postings: the teen musical sensation Floricienta. The show's theme song is a good intro to the peppy pop style that made it a smash hit (lyrics in Spanish and English may be found here).

Per the Wikipedia article:

Floricienta is loosely adapted from the story of Cinderella (Cenicienta, in Spanish-speaking countries) and also presents some comparisons to the film The Sound of Music. The plot revolves around Florencia (Flor), a poor dreamer. She is also a rash, vivacious, cheerful and happy Italian Argentine girl whose life changes when she meets Federico Fritzenwalden, the older son of a very rich German Argentine family whose parents died in an accident. Federico is the older brother and head of the family and has 5 younger siblings (Nico, Franco, Maia, Martín, Tomás) living under his responsibility in a big house with him. Fede has a bitter, cold, strict, rigid and lonely personality until he falls in love with Flor. But Fede has a girlfriend, Delfina, who wants Federico's money. Federico's brothers hate Delfina, but when Flor comes to the Fritzenwaldens' residence, hired by Fede as the nanny, everybody loves her.

The original series aired 2004-2005 and spawned tons of merchandise, music, concerts, even a Broadway-style show that toured. From my research it was a true Argentine pop culture phenomenon, something like a hit Disney movie here in the US. In fact, Floricienta aired on the Disney Channel when it began expanding to other countries, including the United States. Cast albums for the show sold out around Latin America and even as far as Israel.

Like Teen Angels, all the episodes for Floricienta are online at the official YouTube channel. Coming full circle, both shows were created by the same producer Cris Morena, an award-winning television producer, actress, presenter, composer, musician, songwriter, writer, former fashion model and CEO of her own media company.

Observant readers may recall that I cited Floricienta as a major influence on the cover artwork for Estancia. This show gets further name-checked and imitated in the next few chapters, as Catalina's own story bend toward some of the title character's: a budding relationship between a young cheerful dancing girl and an older boy set against the backdrop of a large family house.

However, as with Northanger Abbey and The Mysteries of Udolpho, there are important distinctions between Catalina's more mundane existence and the musical world of Floricienta. For one thing, the romantic "lead" is no longer the elder or dominant member of the family, nor in need of saving from himself by a "manic pixie dreamgirl." In fact, as a fan of the show himself, Enrique's more likely to want to recreate this world for his friend, and may do just that soon. See if you can spot all the Flori moments as "the dance continues" later this week.