A powerful 'Ainadamar' comes to CSO
This is "Ainadamar" week in Chicago.
For those who missed the 2006 area premiere of Osvaldo Golijov's acclaimed opera at the Ravinia Festival, with conductor Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, now's your chance to enjoy this amazing, Grammy Award-winning work.
The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is presenting four concert (nonstaged) performances of "Ainadamar" over the next few days with guest conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya.
The arrival of "Ainadamar" at Orchestra Hall was inevitable once CSO vice president for artistic administration Martha Gilmer attended a staged performance of the work at the Santa Fe Opera in 2005. Golijov joined the CSO as Mead Composer-in-Residence beginning with the 2006-07 season.
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"It is just a gripping score; it's music," Gilmer said. "Of course, it's based on a true story that's so fascinating, but it is the power of Osvaldo's music and the narrative of the music that is at the center. It's stunning. The work really reaches out and grabs you."
Golijov composed "Ainadamar" in 2003 as a Boston Symphony Orchestra commission. It tells the story, through flashbacks, of Catalan actress Margarita Xirgu and her despair over the death of her longtime friend, the legendary poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca.
"Ainadamar" is Arabic for "Fountain of Tears," which is the site of an ancient well near Granada where Lorca was killed by fascist rebels during the opening days of the Spanish Civil War in 1936.
The opera focuses on Lorca, Xirgu and the 19th-century Spanish heroine Mariana Pineda, the subject of one of Lorca's earliest plays.
The role of Pineda was portrayed (tragically) by Xirgu in Uruguay, three decades after Lorca's death. The final scene of the opera, depicting Margarita's death, includes the powerful line "I am freedom, wounded and bleeding hope."
This weekend's cast has for the most part been with "Ainadamar" from the beginning. Soprano Dawn Upshaw is Margarita, with mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor portraying Lorca as a "trousers" role and soprano Jessica Rivera as Nuria, Margarita's student. For Friday's performance only, Rivera will take Upshaw's role of Margarita, with Emily Albrink portraying Nuria. Golijov wrote the opera specifically for Upshaw, O'Connor and Rivera, who have taken part in nearly all its performances over the last four-plus years.
Golijov grew up in an Eastern European Jewish household in La Plata, Argentina, the son of a piano teacher mother and a physician father. As a child, Osvaldo was surrounded by classical chamber music, Jewish liturgical and klezmer music, along with the new Argentine tango of Astor Piazzolla.
After studying piano at the local conservatory and composition with Gerardo Gandini, he moved to Israel in 1983, where he studied with Mark Kopytman at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy.
Golijov moved to the United States in 1986, earning his Ph.D. in music at the University of Pennsylvania.
For the past seven years, Golijov has been inspired by the voice of Upshaw, for whom he composed, in addition to "Ainadamar," "Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra," the song cycle "Ayre" and several arrangements of popular songs.
Upshaw, along with O'Connor and Rivera, headlined the recording of "Ainadamar" made with conductor Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra that won two Grammy Awards in 2006, including "Best Opera Recording."
Golijov's first major success came in 2000 with the premiere of his "St. Mark Passion," which was performed worldwide, including at Ravinia under Spano's baton in 2002 as part of a special weeklong Golijov residency.
"I attended that amazing performance of 'St. Mark Passion,' and it was evident Osvaldo Golijov was a very special talent," Gilmer said. "We are extremely pleased he's composer-in-residence at the Chicago Symphony."
"Ainadamar"
Where: Orchestra Hall at Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago
When: 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday
Tickets: $16 to $124. For availability information or to order, call (312) 294-3000, or visit www.cso.org.