LA Opera will present the company premiere of Ainadamar April 26 through May 18.
The show recounts the fateful final days of poet and playwright Federico García Lorca who was executed during the Spanish Civil War at a natural spring in the hills above the Spanish city of Granada known as Aynadamar, Arabic for fountain of tears.
Recounting the poet’s life is Margarita Xirgu, a veteran Spanish actress and Lorca’s muse who spent her career portraying Mariana Pineda in Lorca’s play. Pineda was a 19th-century political martyr executed by the absolutist Spanish regime for sewing a revolutionary flag with the embroidered slogan “Equality, Freedom and Law. Lorca could see her statue from the window of his family home in Granada and grew to idolize her. Evoking the vibrant colors and poetry of Andalusia and especially Lorca’s hometown Granada, the play was Lorca’s first theatrical success. He asked Xirgu to play the title role at its premiere in June 1927 at the Teatre Goya in Barcelona with scenic design and costumes by Salvador Dalí.
Xirgu fled Spain at the beginning of the Civil War but was unable to persuade Lorca to leave as well. His liberal beliefs and open homosexuality subsequently led to his death at the hands of the Falange, the fascist party founded by the son of former Spanish dictator General Primo de Rivera. Xirgu continued to play Mariana Pineda, keeping Lorca’s work alive. The opera is based on Xirgu’s memories in a series of flashbacks as she prepares to go on stage as Mariana Pineda.
The opera opens with a group of young actresses singing the opening ballad and Xirgu remembers Lorca’s brilliance as she tells her young student Nuria of meeting Lorca for the first time in a Madrid bar where he first described his play to her. The flashback is interrupted by a broadcast over the state radio by the Falangist Ramón Ruiz Alonso that his party will stamp out the beginnings of the revolution. With the launch of the Spanish Civil War, Xirgu pleads with Lorca to join her and her theatre company in Cuba, but he is adamant about staying on in Granada. Xirgu blames herself for not being able to persuade the idealistic Lorca to abandon Spain and save himself. As she sings of her dreams of finding freedom in Cuba, Lorca insists that he must witness and write about his country’s suffering.
As Xirgu is dying, she performs Pineda’s story for the last time, telling Nuria that though the actor acts only for a moment, but the larger idea of freedom transcends that. A vision of Lorca interrupts her, thanking her for immortalizing his spirit on stage, in the hearts of her students, and the world.
Led by Resident Conductor Lina González-Granados, the production features a dramatic, flamenco-inspired score by Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov and a poignant libretto by David Henry Hwang. Staged by director Deborah Colker, the production has won acclaim at the Metropolitan Opera, Scottish Opera, Welsh National Opera and Detroit Opera.
Ana María Martínez (currently appearing as Despina in LAO’s Così fan tutte) returns to take center stage as Lorca’s muse, Margarita Xirgu.
Since its 2003 world premiere, Ainadamar has become one of the most frequently performed operas of the 21st century, seen throughout Europe, North America and South America. Although it is an LA Opera company premiere, the opera has even been performed extensively locally in LA by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2004, Long Beach Opera in 2012 and USC Thornton Opera in 2016, and so should be familiar to local audience.
Ainadamar is sung in Spanish with both English and Spanish supertitles.
Special Events planned around the opera include a Celebración de las Artes hosted by LA Opera Connects and Hispanics for LA Opera after the May 4 matinee, with music, food and fun for all on the Music Center’s Jerry Moss Plaza.
The May 7 performance will mark Pride Night, with a special post-performance gathering for attendees.
For more information and tickets, please visit LAOpera.org/Ainadamar.
