Each year new dancers, guitarists and singers grace the subway tunnels, ignoring the roar of passing trains and giving performances of a calibre that would make some of Madrid’s most jaded flamenco lovers stand up and cheer.

José Mercé opened the festival on a Monday night, with a crowd that had the metro tent busting at its seams. By far the largest turnout of the fest, people crowded around the entrance, while metro security tried to usher them off to the jumbotron below.

Cumbre Flamenca, a weeklong festival celebrating a different flamenco musician or dancer each night, is now in its third year thanks to the Madrid Metro and the Office of Transportation and Infrastructure’s sponsorship. From 17 to 21 September, for the price of a subway ticket, 1,200 attendees watch the nightly presentations from inside the tent erected in the Chamartín metro station’s vestibule. Only diehard fans willing to show up a couple of hours in advance to collect the free invitations had the privilege of in-tent seating. For those who arrived too late, a giant screen TV transmitted the shows on the next level down, where up to 3,000 people had space to congregate.

This year, as with all of the previous, flamenco singers, or cantaores, were in the majority of Cumbre’s lineup. José Mercé, Carmen Linares, Aurora Vargas, Pansequito and flamenco-pop musician Antonio Carmona made this 2007’s playbill read like an all-star musical line-up.

José Mercé opened the festival on a Monday night, with a crowd that had the metro tent busting at its seams. By far the largest turnout of the fest, people crowded around the entrance, while metro security tried to usher them off to the jumbotron below. Mercé has gained a great deal of popularity over the last decade thanks to the success of songs such as ‘La vida sale’ and ‘Aire’ which could be described at as “light flamenco.” Although Mercé can rival most of his contemporaries when it comes to singing flamenco in its purest form, it is without a doubt his toned-down, more easily digestible songs that have made him a big name within and without flamenco circles.

The legendary Carmen Linares, known as one of flamenco’s greatest female singers, also sang for a packed audience, although it may not have been as varied a crowd as that of Mercé’s. Linares has taken flamenco beyond a folkloric tradition and made it a serious art form. Always impeccably dressed and elegantly poised, Linares’ performances are best suited for those who study flamenco and treasure it as a rich and complicated music worthy of exploration. For her first musical foray through the Madrid underground, Linares put together a show that opened with popular songs compiled by writer and poet Federico García Lorca during the first half of the twentieth century, which later gave way to the standard flamenco that the audience expected and more warmly received.

The combined show of gypsy husband and wife cantaores Pansequito and Aurora Vargas brought Andalusia, flamenco’s birthplace, to Madrid. Pansequito, a flamenco veteran who shared stages with the likes of Camarón during flamenco’s golden era, and Aurora Vargas, one of the most potent and exuberant flamencas yet to be discovered by a more general audience, are hands down two of the most authentic and vibrant singers in flamenco history. As is befitting a flamenco performance by a gypsy couple, there was no stopping Vargas from jumping, spinning and stomping across the stage through her last songs, pausing only to sing a verse, then dancing through the choruses.

The surprise selection of this year’s festival was Antonio Carmona. In no way can Carmona’s music be called flamenco. Son of famed flamenco guitarist Pepe Habichuela and front man of the flamenco-pop group Ketama, Carmona’s solo music consists of sugary pop ballads played on corporate radio that have only the faintest hints of flamenco. The festival’s wildcard, whose inclusion surely offended diehard flamenco purists, drew a large and relatively young audience and a few minor celebrities.

All in all, the 2007 Cumbre Flamenca was another unmitigated success. Aside from the musicians, dancer El Güito and company also made an appearance at this year’s festival to represent the dance portion of flamenco culture. It seems that each year, organizers outdo themselves, bringing bigger and better names and drawing increasingly larger crowds, leaving festival fans with great expectations for 2008.