By Brian Seibert
Rippling scales of Spanish guitar, the howls of a raspy-voiced singer, thunderous clapping and stamping — the sounds could have been coming from a tavern in Andalusia, home of flamenco. But this was the Metropolitan Opera House during a recent rehearsal for its new production of “Ainadamar.”
A one-act opera by Argentine-born composer Osvaldo Golijov, “Ainadamar” had its Met debut on Tuesday. And it wasn’t just the sounds of flamenco that were unusual for the opera house. There were two choreographers in the room, one of whom, Deborah Colker, was the production’s director.
Since its premiere at the Tanglewood Music Center in 2003, “Ainadamar”— an 85-minute work about Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca — has had many productions, including in a Golijov festival at Lincoln Center in 2006. But this one, which played at the Scottish Opera and Detroit Opera before coming to New York, has by far the most dance in it.
“What Deborah has done blew me away,” Golijov said in a phone interview. “She revealed to me something I had not thought about”: that the opera “can be danced throughout.”
Colker is known for her dance company in Brazil, as well as her choreography for Cirque du Soleil and the opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. She had a musical education, seriously studying classical piano as a child, but “Ainadamar” is the first opera she has directed.
“I direct like a choreographer,” she said after the rehearsal, noting that her theatrical approach to the opera was simple: gestures, movement, dance. “This is my language, yes, but this is also what the music is asking for.”
But since much of the music, which adds flamenco guitar and percussion to the orchestra, derives from flamenco, she said, it asked for an authenticity that she felt she couldn’t provide alone. Hence the second choreographer: Antonio Najarro, a Spaniard whom Colker met a few years ago when he was directing the National Ballet of Spain.
“My role is to bring the real Spanish dance,” Najarro said. “Not just the steps, but the real flamenco soul.”
The prevalence of flamenco in the opera stems from its subject: Lorca.
“Ainadamar,” with a libretto by David Henry Hwang (translated into Spanish by Golijov), looks at Lorca through the eyes of Catalan actress Margarita Xirgu (soprano Angel Blue at the Met). At the end of her life, in exile in Uruguay, she remembers him, particularly the moment of crisis when he was accused of being a communist and a homosexual by the Falange, a fascist political party, during the Spanish Civil War. “Ainadamar” is the name of a spring in the Spanish city of Granada, also called the Fountain of Tears, near where Lorca is believed to have been executed in 1936.
Lorca was born in Granada, a cradle of flamenco. He was a champion of the art — especially its cante jondo, or deep song — and wrote about it in many of his poems. His 1933 lecture on “duende,” the mysterious force behind authentic emotion in flamenco, is perhaps the most influential text ever written about the art form. Lorca is so closely associated with flamenco that a festival in Granada debuts a new flamenco work connected to him every summer.
Golijov said that flamenco serves in his score as a symbol of “the soil of Spain that both gave birth to and swallowed Lorca.”
That is why the character of Ramón Ruiz Alonso, the Falangist who arrested Lorca, sings in cante jondo style. At some points, radio broadcasts of fascist propaganda mix with flamenco percussion and footwork. During an “Interlude of Gunshots” that represents Lorca’s death with a rhythmically intense barrage of clapping, stamping and historical recordings of gunfire, chorus members collapse as if shot and Alonso sings a cante jondo lament.
The role is difficult, said flamenco vocalist Alfredo Tejada, who performs it at the Met, “because flamenco is the freest art,” the opposite of fascist control. But, he added, “I try to find the hardness and cruelty of the character in the purity of flamenco.”
Colker said that when she listened to the score, she saw dancing where previous productions didn’t. When Lorca (mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack) sings an aria about 19th-century liberal martyr Mariana Pineda — the heroine of one of his early plays, a role originated by Xirgu — he recalls a statue of her outside his window.
“I thought, ‘This statue is a dancer,’” Colker said. So she put a dancer in the scene — four, actually, each up on a table wielding a Spanish shawl. “There are four because it’s not real,” Colker said. “It’s like a poem.”
When Xirgu tries to persuade Lorca to escape with her to Havana, four shirtless male dancers slink around Lorca in his fantasy. (“They touch Lorca all over — I love this!” Colker said with glee.) When Lorca refuses to leave Spain, he hymns his love of the country and its people while the chorus gathers around him, dancing and making a sound like gunshots as they snap open hand-held fans.
Later, as Xirgu dies, a dancer in a long-trained bata de cola dress pays tribute to her atop a table. Xirgu’s funeral procession is trailed by a flamenco dancer, arching like a matador.
Just about everyone in this production dances. Lorca flaps a fan. Xirgu’s student Nuria (Elena Villalón), who represents the next generation, rocks her hips to rumba rhythms. Xirgu moves her arms in dancerly gestures that are echoed and amplified by the female chorus.
“I wanted the audience not to recognize who is a dancer, who is a singer,” Colker said.
For Golijov, having his work performed at the Met has particular resonance. In 2007, the Met commissioned him to write an opera. When he still hadn’t delivered it by 2016, the commission was canceled. In the preceding years, several commissions by other organizations had also been canceled when Golijov failed to complete them on time.
In his interview, Golijov declined to speak about this period and his history with the Met, except to say that he is proud this opera is being performed there. “It belongs,” he said.
But Golijov did talk about how “Ainadamar” owes its birth to his trouble meeting deadlines. Commissioned by Tanglewood to write his first opera, he wasn’t getting anywhere as the deadline loomed. Someone suggested that he ask Hwang for help. Hwang responded by asking him, “What do you love?” His immediate answer was Lorca.
While Lorca was an inspiring subject for Golijov, he and Hwang faced a problem: The Tanglewood opera commission was for an all-female cast of pre-professional singers and star soprano Dawn Upshaw. Listening to tapes of the cast, Golijov was struck by one woman’s low and dusky voice, which gave him the idea that Lorca could be played by a mezzo-soprano.
Golijov is also proud to bring a Spanish-language opera to the Met. Last year’s production of Daniel Catán’s “Florencia en el Amazonas” was the first in Spanish in almost a century and only the third ever. “Spanish is amazing for opera, and so underused,” Golijov said.
And Spanish, of course, was the language of Lorca. “Ainadamar” traces a line of memory — of freedom and poetry and love — from Mariana Pineda through Lorca to Xirgu and her students, a line that the opera itself continues.
“We still need him,” Colker said, alluding to the persistence of prejudice and fascist politics.
“He’s still alive,” Golijov said. “I’m so happy.”
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