2007 Grammy Award – Best Classical Composition
2007 Grammy Award – Best Opera Recording
“Golijov will change the way music is played and heard.” New York Times
“Golijov’s score is amazing – opening distant trumpet calls, insinuating dance rhythms, vital percussion, arrestingly beautiful arias. A theatre of delirium.” Los Angeles Times
“Its power lies in its pure emotional authenticity. Hauntingly beautiful.” Washington Post
“A rare and special thing – a new opera that works because Golijov can’t seem to write music that isn’t full of life, passion and drama.” Boston Herald
Australian Premiere
International
An Opera in Three Images
The Spanish Civil War, 1936: one of the 2,137 civilians in Granada murdered by the Fascists was Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain’s revered poet, musician and playwright who dared to speak of freedom.
Ironically, the spot where he was killed was an ancient well named Ainadamar, the ‘Fountain of Tears’. Lorca’s life inspired many artists, among them the brilliant Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov, who created this critically acclaimed opera in his honour.
In this stirring new staging, directed by the legendary Graeme Murphy, and featuring an international cast including Jessica Rivera and Kelley O’Connor. Golijov’s mesmerising score is saturated with Spanish music tantalisingly mingled with the rival Christian, Jewish and Muslim influences of Iberia. Ainadamar relates the story through Margarita Xirgu, the actress who collaborated with Lorca and tried to persuade him to escape with her to Latin America just before his fatal arrest. At the end of her life, she is about to take the stage to perform one of his plays, and finds herself haunted by his memory.
Presented by Adelaide Bank Festival of Arts in association with State Opera of South Australia.
Sung in Spanish with surtitles.
Composer
Osvaldo Golijov
Librettist
David Henry Hwang
Spanish translation
Osvaldo Golijov
Director
Graeme Murphy
Assistant to the Director
Janet Vernon
Conductor
Giancarlo Guerrero
Costume Designer
Jennifer Irwin
Lighting Designer
Damien Cooper
Video Designer
Tim Gruchy
Assistant Conductor/ Chorusmaster
Timothy Sexton
Cast
Jessica Rivera/Margarita Xirgu
Kelley O’Connor/Federico Garcia Lorca
Leanne Kenneally/Nuria
Jamie Allen
Stephen Bennett
James Egglestone
Adam Goodburn
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra
Featuring
Slava Grigoryan
Leonard Grigoryan
Adelaide Vocal Project
Image: Tim Gruchy
Biography
Osvaldo Golijov
Composer
Osvaldo Golijov grew up in an Eastern European Jewish household in La Plata, Argentina. Born to a piano teacher mother and physician father, Golijov was raised surrounded by chamber classical music, Jewish liturgical and klezmer music, and the new tango of Astor Piazzolla.
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