Music director's ties with 'Ainadamar' run deep
Robert Spano has a right to be proud of his long association with "Ainadamar," the opera by Osvaldo Golijov that the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performs this weekend.
Spano was there at the beginning, in 2003, when the opera was being prepared for its world premiere at the Boston Symphony Orchestra's summer Tanglewood Festival in western Massachusetts.
A Boston Symphony commission, "Ainadamar" was first performed, not by that orchestra, but the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, an ensemble of advanced students preparing for professional careers.
"It was really a work in progress," Spano said of the Tanglewood experience. "Osvaldo was still writing it while we were rehearsing, so it was tremendously exciting because the work was unfolding for us every day. It was scary, but wonderful. We really got to see how this piece was forming in his imagination. The whole experience was extraordinary."
Spano subsequently conducted concert performances of "Ainadamar" with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, of which he is music director. Those performances and subsequent recording used the same major cast members: Dawn Upshaw, Kelley O'Connor and Jessica Rivera.
Spano & Co. then took "Ainadamar" on the road, including the Ravinia Festival in 2006.
"I love the work; it's such a great work," Spano said while recently wrapping up John Adams' "Doctor Atomic" at Lyric Opera of Chicago. "We're taking it this spring to Carnegie Hall in New York and next fall to the Barbican in London. It's just wonderful that the work is getting the attention it deserves."
Why has "Ainadamar" struck such a responsive chord with audiences and critics?
"I think one of the most striking features of the score is this passionate intensity as well as its lyricism -- just the sheer beauty of the vocal writing," Spano said. "The other surface aspect that's so noticeable is the Spanish influence of the music. For me, the other facet of the work that I find powerful is its trajectory. It really takes us on a journey that you can't get off the train, so that by the time you get to the end, there's a real sense of having been taken through a remarkable journey.
"I also find it transformative, because there's so much suffering and pain present in the work, which ultimately ends with a sense of hope and liberty and fulfillment."
Spano notes that huge credit for "Ainadamar's" success of the work (including its double Grammy Award-winning recording for Deutsche Grammophon) has been the continuity of the cast.
"That's one of the things about Osvaldo's music; often, he writes with performers in mind," the conductor said. "For example, he created the role of Margarita with Dawn Upshaw specifically in mind. The same for Kelley O'Connor as Lorca and Jessica Rivera as Nuria."
The same vocal cast was involved with concert performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, plus "Ainadamar's first fully staged production, the latter in the summer of 2005 at Santa Fe Opera. Both were under the baton of Miguel Harth-Bedoya, this week's conductor with the CSO. Peter Sellars, who staged the Lyric's "Doctor Atomic," brought "Ainadamar" to the stage in Santa Fe.
Spano says "Ainadamar" is equally impressive in concert and staged performances.
"The music takes on a different focus when the whole staged production isn't there, but still I think in a very powerful way," he said. "In a concert performance, you really hear it more. You get a different perspective, but I think an equally valid one."