Compelling performance of a problematic work
Imagine an opera scene in which five flamenco dancers are executed by volleys of rifle fire. Horrible. And what, one may ask, makes it opera? Then a singer in uniform hoarsely shouts, “¡Viva la Muerte!” (Long live death!), and his squad continues to fire and the bodies to spasm, until those fusillades of bullets turn into a wild percussion theme.
Now that’s opera.
Opera Parallèle pulled off a decided coup last weekend at SF’s Yerba Buena Center, bringing together talented musicians, singers and dancers under the baton of Nicole Paiement for the Bay Area’s premiere of Osvaldo Golijov’s contemporary opera Ainadamar.
The whole strange mélange of brilliant music, flattened storyline, and political horror was made to work, and that wondrously, between Paiement’s taut conducting and the concept and staging of Brian Staufenbiel. Together with Paiement, Staufenbiel completes an adventurous team that has produced definitive new productions of contemporary gems, including Lou Harrison’s Young Caesar, Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, and John Harbison’s The Great Gatsby.
Ainadamar was not exactly a celebration of the life of Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca. Rather, it focused on his death and on the Spanish Civil War. The opera revolves around three tableau’s: the martyrdom of Mariana Pineda, an early advocate for human rights and the subject of a Lorca play; the memories of Lorca’s sometime lover, actress Margarita Xirgu; and Lorca’s death at the hands of the Spanish Fascists.
Soprano Marnie Breckenridge delivered a convincing portrait of Xirgu, with Lisa Chavez singing powerfully in the alto/tenor range to elicit the ambiguous sexuality of Lorca. They were joined by Maya Kherani, whose pure high notes as Xirgu’s student, Nuria, added a lovely top dimension. The whole was choreographed around five dancers, members of La Tania Flamenco Dance troupe, joining arm arabesques and steely footwork for sensuous movements sharply demarcated.
On entering the theatre one could see young women with chalked complexions and long white gowns circulating through the crowd. The bottoms of their dresses were stained red, and they maintained the stony gaze of those condemned in this life or waiting for the next. These bloodless wraiths, talented members of the San Francisco Girls’ Chorus, later reappeared on stage as the Spanish equivalent of a Greek chorus, the victims of war under Franco and the Fascists.
They were joined by a chorus of younger members, also dressed in the white of nightgowns or shrouds, and carrying white suitcases. That virginal death/wedding motif was our first impression and last, as the stage lights came full on to leave us with a burning image of white-robed girls with deep-shadowed eyes.
Golijov’s score was a marvel of accessible contemporary, fusing modern textures with sharp flamenco rhythms and folk. Flamenco shouts and ancient Arabic melismas were fortified with a barrage of Spanish-inflected trumpets. At times a sound track added megaphones and amplified water drops. The dense percussion writing included both traditional drums and the softer shapes of congas and palmas, complemented by glittering guitar passages.
The musicians were the cream of San Francisco and Santa Cruz, and many of their names have appeared in the Piedmont Post: keyboardist Keisuke Nakagoshi, one half of the marvelous ZOFO piano duo; Roy Malan, founder of the Telluride Chamber Festival and concertmaster of the SF Ballet; cellist Kelley Maulbetsch, member of Quartet San Francisco; oboist Kyle Bruckman, a veteran of Quinteto Latino and of contemporary ensembles; Stan Poplin, the Santa Cruz go-to bass player for jazz greats; New York trumpet player Katie Miller; guitarists Paul Psarras and the famed David Tanenbaum, and many more. I’m sure this is a group that knows how to have fun!
Even the lighting, by Matthew Antaky, reflected the high production values, with primal and cryptic reds and blues washing over the shifting forms of the flamenco dancers, while the active video backdrop helped make sense of the interwoven timelines.
But something about the whole refused to gel. The libretto, by David Henry Hwang, layered three connected stories for a disjointed pastiche. His was a static form of poetry, unpacking moments from three lives into an overburdened present, an odd tribute to the poetry of Lorca, whose dreamy lines and powerful images were better reflected by the staging.
Worse, Hwang structured the assassination of Lorca as a religious passion play. At one point Breckenridge sings, “Here is my blood, shed for thee. Drink it and tell my story.” In light of Lorca’s gay leanings and fight against the conservative religious zealots, replacing one iconography with another was rather chilling, even if was meant as sarcasm.
A bit of history may be helpful here. After a protracted monarchy, the people of Spain finally created a representative government and separated Church from State. When Franco seized power with ultra-religious right-wing groups, North African mercenaries, and with air support from Nazi Germany, the Church regained a power unknown since the Inquisition. The state education system was “catholicized” all the way up to the university level and most teachers and all women professors were dismissed (or shot). Additionally, divorce, contraceptives and abortion were forbidden, and all civil marriages were declared null. This newly Catholic State was a brutal tower of informants, death warrants, and mass graves, and led to the exodus of the entire professional or educated class.
Which leads to disturbing questions.
Why has there been fifty years of silence? Why did the Allies leave Spain to the Fascists? Why did Franco rule with an iron hand for 40 years? Did America support Fascism as an ally in the cold war with Russia? Historians are just now “digging” through Spain’s past, unearthing the half million murdered.
And of course the most troubling question, one that Golijov, a Jewish born Argentine composer, does not raise, is the resonance between Europe’s Fascist movements and America’s homegrown brand, our Tea Party. Prayer in the schools? Anti-labor crusades? Attacks on women’s rights, public art and health care? Welcome to the Spanish Civil War.
Paiement and Staufenbiel, a couple in real life, have won numerous accolades, including First prize by the National Opera Association. Their next collaboration will be Leonard Bernstein’s acute social commentary, Trouble in Tahiti, starring the incomparable baritone Eugene Brancoveanu. It will be performed April 26, 27 and 28 at Z Space, 450 Florida St. in San Francisco. For tickets and information (and it will probably sell out) see operaparallele.org.
—Adam Broner
Photo top of the three principles: Lisa Chavez as the poet Lorca, Marnie Breckenridge as actress Margarita Xirgu, and Maya Kherani as her student, Nuria; photo bottom of the ensemble, including members of the SF Girls Chorus and La Tania Flamenco Dance. Both photos by Steve DiBartolomeo.
