{"id":5018,"date":"2025-04-30T21:38:02","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T21:38:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/30\/opera-review-ainadamar-commands-the-stage-at-la-opera\/"},"modified":"2025-04-30T21:38:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T21:38:07","slug":"opera-review-ainadamar-commands-the-stage-at-la-opera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalgunowner.org\/index.php\/2025\/04\/30\/opera-review-ainadamar-commands-the-stage-at-la-opera\/","title":{"rendered":"Opera Review: \u2018Ainadamar\u2019 Commands the Stage at LA Opera"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Solo dancer Isaac Tovar in the LA Opera production of Ainadamar<\/em>. Photo: Cory Weaver \/ LA Opera<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When composer Osvaldo Golijov<\/a> wrote his opera, Ainadamar<\/i>, in 2003, the facts behind the death of his subject, poet Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca, were still unknown. Fascist dictator Francisco Franco<\/a> maintained that the allegations surrounding the renowned writer\u2019s death were being used as propaganda, saying he \u201cdied while mixing with the rebels, these are natural accidents of war.\u201d But most believed Lorca was executed by a right-wing firing squad along with three others.<\/p>\n

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Taking the stage at LA Opera through May 18<\/a>, Ainadamar<\/i> stars mezzo Daniela Mack<\/a> in the \u201ctrouser role\u201d of Lorca opposite soprano Ana Mar\u00eda Mart\u00ednez as Margarita Xirgu<\/a>, famed Spanish stage actress and Lorca confidant, as well as the story\u2019s narrator. The libretto was written in English by playwright David Henry Hwang<\/a> and translated by Golijov. Maestra Lina Gonz\u00e1lez-Granados conducts.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always thought the Dirty War in Argentina was a child of the civil war in Spain,\u201d Golijov, born in La Plata, Argentina, tells Observer. \u201cIt was part of why I wrote Ainadamar<\/i>. When I started the piece, I literally had an image of a pomegranate floating, leaking melodies that were Jewish, Arab, Gypsy, Christian, Flamenco. Because in Spanish, pomegranate means Granada, the city of Lorca. So, I thought of a granada bleeding melodies.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Daniela Mack (top) as Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca with Ana Mar\u00eda Mart\u00ednez as Margarita Xirgu. Photo: Cory Weaver \/ LA Opera<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Director-choreographer Deborah Colker<\/a>\u2019s 2022 staging includes extended dance elements and otherworldly backdrops. \u201cFor better or for worse, you\u2019re going to see me dance,\u201d laughs Mart\u00ednez, a regular singer with LA Opera, including a scene-stealing Despina in Cos\u00ec Fan Tutte <\/i>earlier this season with James Conlon<\/a> conducting. \u201cWhere there\u2019s a production that requires dance, I\u2019m all there. I have a very patient choreographer working with me on this, and the dance captain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aside from the role\u2019s physical demands, the dynamic vocal range also takes its toll. \u201cIn rehearsal, I\u2019ve been trying to find the moments where it\u2019s clear it\u2019s her as younger or older,\u201d says Mart\u00ednez of a role that spans a lifetime. \u201cIt\u2019s important to be slower in your movements and tired. The younger version is more dynamic, there\u2019s more pride, a taller posture. Later, when she\u2019s going through grief and worry, it\u2019s the lowest part of the range, which is so mezzo. I\u2019ve done roles that are usually done by mezzo (Carmen<\/i> and others). I\u2019ve always had a comfortable low range. After he\u2019s dies, it gets very floaty, super high tessitura. So, it\u2019s navigating all those parts of the voice.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Daniela Mack (in white suit) as Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca and Ana Mar\u00eda Mart\u00ednez (in flowered dress) as Margarita Xirgu. Photo: Cory Weaver \/ LA Opera<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Born in Puerto Rico to a Puerto Rican mother and a Cuban father, Mart\u00ednez was raised there and in New York City, where she graduated from The Juilliard School and went on to an illustrious career singing in opera houses around the world. In major U.S. cities, she\u2019s begun to notice a change in the air that makes Ainadamar<\/i> resonate with current events.<\/p>\n

\u201cI talked to several Latinos about thi, and I think there is a target on specific groups,\u201d she says of government deportations. \u201cI try not to consume myself with anxiety, but it\u2019s troubling. It terrifies me when I see people who are neighbors or I know casually speaking in a way I would not have recognized a while ago. We study history, and one reason is to hopefully not repeat the mistakes of the past, and yet here we are. This story, the tragedy that occurred in the 1930s, can be seen as happening now. It starts small, and then, in a while, a different reality is established. So, start paying attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ana Mar\u00eda Mart\u00ednez as Margarita Xirgu. Photo: Cory Weaver \/ LA Opera<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Currently living in Massachusetts, Golijov was raised by a piano teacher mother and a physician father. A Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowship winner, his 2007 recording of Ainadamar<\/i> took home two Grammy Awards. His work in cinema includes soundtracks for filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola<\/a>, such as last year\u2019s Megalopolis<\/i>. As a teenager, he experienced Argentina\u2019s Dirty War from 1974 through 1983, when a military junta disappeared as many as 30,000 civilians.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere it\u2019s just beginning,\u201d he warns. \u201cI never ever imagined, which shows how limited my imagination is, that something like that could end up here. I felt dictatorship would never happen. Now, I\u2019m not so sure. So far, it seems to be very mild, but there are some things that are very scary to me. When an unidentified officer snatches somebody from the street, it reminds me of that time. In Argentina, they would disappear, and no one would know where they were. Here, too, we have people who have been detained, but we don\u2019t know where they are. My having \u2018white skin,\u2019 in an ugly way, helps. I would be much more scared if I had brown skin and this accent. I never, ever imagined Ainadamar<\/i> would have resonance with the reality of America. It takes a long time to build something and a very short time to destroy it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Ana Mar\u00eda Mart\u00ednez (center) as Margarita Xirgu. Photo: Cory Weaver \/ LA Opera<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The truth about Lorca\u2019s death was revealed in 2015 when documents from a 1965 police file<\/a> surfaced. They suggest the poet was persecuted for his beliefs as a \u201csocialist and a freemason,\u201d citing rumors of \u201chomosexual and abnormal practices.\u201d After two police searches of his home in Granada, Lorca fled to a friend\u2019s house. In August 1936, just one month after the Spanish Civil War broke out, police surrounded the house and arrested him. He was taken to an area near a place called Fuente Grande where, along with another detainee, he was \u201cexecuted immediately after having confessed, and was buried in that location, in a very shallow grave, in a ravine.\u201d His remains were never found.<\/p>\n

Toward the end of Ainadamar,<\/i> soprano Vanessa Becerra<\/a>, who sings Nuria, recites Lorca\u2019s poem: My silken heart \/ Is filled with light \/ the lost tolling of bells \/ And bees and lilies<\/i>. In it, he refers to the eponymous \u201cfountain of tears,\u201d which translates in Arabic to \u201cainadamar,\u201d symbolizing Lorca. \u201cHis words are perfectly set to music,\u201d sighs Golijov. \u201cWith Lorca, everything is there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"\u2018Ainadamar\u2019<\/p><\/div>\n