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Last night, I braved the cold to go hear the CSO's concert production of Osvaldo Golijov's short opera, Ainadamar. (The librettist is the playwright David Henry Hwang, best known for M. Butterfly.) As I was waiting in the wind and cold at the bus stop, I thought, "If I hadn't paid for this ticket, I might bag this!", but I didn't, thank goodness. It was an extraordinary evening.
The opera is set at the end of the life of the Catalan actress, Margarita Xirgu, friend and muse of the poet, Federico Garcia Lorca. She is about to go onstage in the play he wrote about Mariana Pineda, and reminisces about him with her protegée, Nuria. We go back and forth in time, to her first meeting with Lorca, to his murder at the hands of the Fascists, and back to the theatre.
When Golijov (who is now composer-in-residence at CSO) first wrote this, Lorca did not appear in it. But encountering the mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor, with a stunning dark voice and looks resembling Lorca's, he decided to the poet in a role written specifically for O'Connor (as he had written the role of Xirgu for Dawn Upshaw). Both O'Connor and Upshaw sang the roles here. The music is deeply lyrical, with echoes not only of Spanish, but Arabic, Jewish and other cultures. Golijov also uses other sounds, hoofbeats and gunshots, which turn into the staccato rhythm of flamenco. I'd love to see a staged production!
The opera is set at the end of the life of the Catalan actress, Margarita Xirgu, friend and muse of the poet, Federico Garcia Lorca. She is about to go onstage in the play he wrote about Mariana Pineda, and reminisces about him with her protegée, Nuria. We go back and forth in time, to her first meeting with Lorca, to his murder at the hands of the Fascists, and back to the theatre.
When Golijov (who is now composer-in-residence at CSO) first wrote this, Lorca did not appear in it. But encountering the mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor, with a stunning dark voice and looks resembling Lorca's, he decided to the poet in a role written specifically for O'Connor (as he had written the role of Xirgu for Dawn Upshaw). Both O'Connor and Upshaw sang the roles here. The music is deeply lyrical, with echoes not only of Spanish, but Arabic, Jewish and other cultures. Golijov also uses other sounds, hoofbeats and gunshots, which turn into the staccato rhythm of flamenco. I'd love to see a staged production!
