“A FOUNTAIN OF TEARS AND REFLECTION
Lawrence Edelson

“The poem, the song, the picture, is only water drawn from the well of the people, and it should be given back to them in a cup of beauty so that they may drink – and in drinking understand themselves.”
- Federico García Lorca

Ainadamar reimagines the life of poet and playwright Federico García Lorca, whose politics and homosexuality led to his brutal execution during the Spanish Civil War. Composer Osvaldo Golijov’s Grammy-award winning score grabs you from the very first beat – weaving together musical influences from around the world. Golijov grew up in Argentina, the son of Eastern European Jews. Ainadamar is deeply saturated in Spanish music – especially Flamenco – but throughout we hear rival influences, drawing on both sacred and folk music, as well as dynamic use of electronic samples – including the sounds of water, horse hooves, and gunshots – to create a unique sonic world that transports us into the fragments of memory that are weaved together to tell a deeply meaningful story.

Through the opera, two themes emerge: the birth of the legacy of Lorca; and the passing of an artistic legacy from one generation to the next. Ainadamar has features of both an opera and a passion play as it examines the powerful symbolic role Lorca has embodied since his death. The connections with the Baroque passion also occur structurally, as the work evolves as a series of arias, recurring choruses and dances. The first production of Ainadmar was presented in concert, and the piece continues to be performed both in concert and more fully staged with lavish sets and costumes – often with extensive use of Flamenco dance. As we were preparing this production for the Moores Opera Center, I found myself thinking about how our students could best bring librettist David Henry Hwang and Golijov’s story telling to life.

Ainadamar is told in reverse, in a series of flashbacks. The opera explores the tension of time, the evolution of memory, and how our bodies function as temporary vessels through which we pass on our lived experience. As a former dancer, my work as a director often explores the intersection of physical, musical and textual storytelling. Singers are not dancers, but their bodies are still the vessels through which stories are told. So often, young singers focus just on their voices – but the entire body is the vehicle for sharing a story. How can we tell this story dynamically with our bodies, the most versatile of instruments? How does stillness impact us? Movement? Tempo? Dynamic? Gesture? How do we play with time in an opera that plays with time?

These are the questions we’ve been exploring together in our production of Ainadamar. I am incredibly proud of how committed our two casts – including both undergraduate and graduate students - have been while exploring this kind of storytelling. I am also incredibly grateful to have Maestro Steven Osgood with us as our guest conductor for this production. Steve and I have had the opportunity to collaborate on a number of contemporary opera projects in the past, and as we close our Moores Opera Center season with Ainadamar, I hope that all involved will have found something special in this experience that they can savor as they continue to pursue their passion for opera.

“The fight all of us young artists must carry on is the fight for what is new and unforeseen.”
- Federico García Lorca
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