Sheets covered the whole stage of Long Beach’s Terrace Theater Sunday night, with one presumably comfy chair set right in the middle.
It was business as usual for Long Beach Opera, which, as in this instance, makes much of little, relying on singing and music to make up for minimalist production values.
In this case the opera was “Ainadamar” with music by Osvaldo Golijov, text by David Henry Hwang, and the production designed and directed by Andreas Mitisek, LBO’s artistic and general director and a man who can roll with the punches an artist’s life brings along once in a while.
There wasn’t much said before Sunday’s premiere about LBO’s original plans for “Ainadamar,” which involved setting the opera inside the shell of the old Press-Telegram building in downtown Long Beach, and then in that building’s parking lot. Both plans were nixed at the last minute by the company’s inability to get performance permits for that locale.
The Terrace Theater was the late choice for the staged-performance version of the opera, a story about the murder of Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca, told by his friend Margarita Xirgu at the end of her long life. The work was commissioned for the Tanglewood Festival in 2004, reworked by director Peter Sellars for the Santa Fe Opera a few years later, and won a couple of Grammys for a recording of the score.
The LBO production had a bit of a last-minute look about it, with video artist Frieder Weiss’ projections less magical than last year (when he collaborated with the company for its remarkable production of Phillip Glass’ opera “Akhnaten”), the sheets in a bit of disarray, and the special effects (the spirits of those murdered by the fascists) flying to heaven only late in the opera.
But against those production problems was arrayed some of the best singing the LBO regulars – soprano Suzan Hanson as Xirgu, mezzo soprano Peabody Southwell as Lorca and soprano Ani Maldjian as Nuria, Xirgu’s pupil, have ever produced. Golijov’s score is rich with the influences of klezmer music, of Gypsy and flamenco and the singing from all three was rich and deep and filled with raw emotion.
Jesus Montoya, flamenco artist from Spain, recreated his role as Ruiz Alonzo, who tells part of the story from off-stage. His voice was amplified but filled the large hall with a rich and passionate sound that conveyed in part the tragedy of Lorca’s murder.
Lorca was killed by Falangist soldiers because his poetry was considered dangerous. His works were burned, his plays banned in Spain, and Xirgu, who fled the revolution, never returned to Spain. The opera’s title is the name of the fountain, “Fountain of Tears,” near where the poet died.
One question, raised by several audience members, was why the opera, written originally in English, had been translated into Spanish and was sung in that language with supertitles. Perhaps the translation, by the composer, makes the work sound better to his ears. (He is Argentinian.)
The score calls for a large orchestra, hidden backstage in this production. The 47 pieces, led by Steven R. Osgood, played Golijov’s very accessible score with grace and rhythmic abandon. There was a lively dialogue between the orchestra, Montoya and Hanson’s richly voiced, passionately intense Xirgu.
Southwell, in the pants role of Lorca, was particularly moving and visually memorable, stunning as the dead poet. Roberto Perlas Gomez and John Atkins were reliable as the teacher and bullfighter murdered with Lorca.
This production would certainly have been different, and perhaps more interesting, inside the abandoned Press-Telegram building, but Mitisek managed to pull the production together despite all the difficulties. And if it wasn’t perfect it was still a fascinating look at a work that is on its way to becoming a minor modern classic.
Lecturer Gregorio Luke read, in the original Spanish, several of Lorca’s poems before the opera and is scheduled to do so again an hour before Saturday’s production. It is well worth coming early to hear, in Lorca’s language, why he is so highly regarded as a poet.
John Farrell is a Long Beach freelance writer.
