Lorca lives through dance, opera, visual arts and more
Osvaldo Golijov's one-act opera "Ainadamar" is based on the life, work, and personal courage of Spanish writer and icon Federico Garcia Lorca.
by John Von Rhein
When the Chicago Symphony Orchestra mounts an important downtown premiere, it does it up big. Very big.
The CSO's downtown premiere of Osvaldo Golijov's one-act opera, "Ainadamar," has been expanded into a citywide partnership with Instituto Cervantes and the Albany Park Theater Project.
The three Chicago arts institutions are paying homage to Federico Garcia Lorca, the great Spanish poet, playwright and cultural icon whose ghostly presence hovers over "Ainadamar."
"Ainadamar" is a powerful and poignant work, as anyone will attest who heard the Chicago-area premiere by the Atlanta Symphony at Ravinia in 2006. The 80-minute opera -- premiered in 2003 and extensively revised in 2005 -- is a meditation on personal courage in the face of political oppression.
The title refers to the Fountain of Tears ("Ainadamar" in Arabic) in Granada where Lorca was killed by Fascist Falangist forces in 1936 during the early stages of the Spanish Civil War. While David Henry Hwang's libretto mixes reality and dream, Golijov's score is a richly woven tapestry of sounds straight off the streets of Spain and South America. Supporting the vocal and choral parts are pungent drum beats, hot brass licks and strings swaying to a samba beat.
"The opera lives on the borderline between memory and the birth of myth," explains Golijov, who was born in Argentina and who's in his second year as one of the CSO's composers in residence. "It's actually a meditation on two deaths, the death of someone who gets killed in the middle of his creative flowering and the death of someone who dies old."
Golijov has assigned the role of Lorca to a mezzo-soprano, sung in the CSO concert version by Kelley O'Connor. The work's central figure is Lorca's friend and muse, Catalan actress Margarita Xirgu, who collaborated with him on several of his plays. The part was created for soprano Dawn Upshaw, who will share it with Jessica Rivera. Miguel Harth-Bedoya, a longtime Golijov collaborator, conducts.
