Springtime in Spain is birds. A dazzling flight of songsters descends on city parks and suburbs, on woodlands and villages in valleys. Hoopoes, nightingales, wrens, blackbirds, and the well-tuned peeping of the little Scops owl: a glorious pallet of song. But this spring, perhaps their singing has been surpassed by the opera theatres.
The bird metaphor is highly appropriate for Viaje a Simorgh, (Journey to Simorgh) by José María Sánchez-Verdú (Algeciras, 1968), premiered this month at Madrid’s Teatro Real. More a scenified cantata or a tone poem with voices, Simorgh presents its audience with a densely symbolic journey through trials and plagues, beyond religion and ritual, to a discovery of self, life and love. In part, the tale is of a group of birds making the dangerous flight to Simorgh. However, the opera is not organized on a linear narrative: it can be better approached as a circling pattern of symbols, a piece of complex poetic music theatre in which youth and age embrace, a boy and a girl seek each other, and the moment of arrival is a point of departure for more questions. On the way there are encounters with disease, danger, death. There are few signposts to guide where the seekers must follow, and the audience becomes drawn into reading the mystic signs and finding a spiritual path.
Sánchez-Verdú’s short libretto, based on a novel by Juan Goytisolo, is highly referential, weaving strands from various sources. Most prominent among these is ‘The Conference of the Birds’ of Farid Ud-din Attar, but significant contributions come from the mystical poetry of Saint John of the Cross, from the ‘Song of Solomon’, and from Ramón Llul, among several others.
The music, like the libretto, is eclectic and often exotic. To a large orchestra with plenty of percussion, Sánchez-Verdú adds electronic music (three highly skilled artists from the Experimentalstudio für akustische Kunst e. V., Freiburg). There is a stage chorus, and a solitary bird is doubly represented by a dancer (Cesc Gelabert) and a stage violinist (the orchestra’s co-leader, Ara Malikian). There is also a stage trio of violas da gamba. In the final episode a brass ensemble plays in the upper galleries of the auditorium. The handling of these large forces is musically most impressive. Much of the score is hauntingly quiet and evocative though there are some impressive tuttis. The blending of potentially disparate forces is part of the work’s success, while structural elements of pattern, repetition and development guide the audience’s ear as the composer creates a sound world which is fully integrated with the libretto and never obscures the sung word. The text itself in various ways recalls Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage and, most recently, Henze’s L’Upupa und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe, but the music speaks in a tradition of orchestral craftsmanship drawn from Debussy, Ravel and Messiaen.
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Viaje a Simorgh was performed with an aplomb that testified to careful preparation and rehearsal. A distinguished cast included Dietrich Henschel, Ofelia Sala (three performances taken by Lucas Meacham and Ksenija Lukic), Marcel Pérès, and outstanding singing from Carlos Mena, one of the leading counter-tenors of our time. The opera was conducted with characteristic unfussy elegance by Jesús López Cobos, to whom it is dedicated, and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid gave an accomplished account of what is undoubtedly a demanding score. Stage design and direction were by Frederic Amat.
We must remember though that one swallow doesn’t, of course, make a summer; and there are in fact more voices in the theatres of Spain right now. Il Tutore Burlato by Vicente Martin y Soler (1754-1806) will be presented at the Teatro Real in June in an opera academy collaboration with the Universidad Carlos III. Il Califfo di Bagdad by Manuel García (1775-1832) will be revived in a semi-staged production for the Granada Festival, and will later visit Barcelona and Madrid. It’s worth pausing over Manuel García, for he was an extraordinary figure: a tenor, composer, teacher and impresario. He was the father of both Maria Malibrán and Pauline Viardot, and presented the first opera performances in the United States in joint ventures with none other than Mozart’s most distinguished librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. Música Antigua Aranjuez this spring offers the early zarzuela La Fontana del Placer (music by José Castel) and a sort of case could be made for Il Trovatore (Teatro Real Madrid, June) as Spanish opera.
What is happening in the opera scene of this country right now is bold and stimulating, measuring up well against a mission statement (in slightly rearranged words) from Ethan Mordden’s excellent book, Demented, the world of the opera diva: “Opera is four hundred years’ worth of art. Opera is disinterring classics of long-dead eras and commissioning future classics.” Wouldn’t it be great to see either the Gran Teatre del Liceu or the Teatro Real build a season around a mixture of operas, older and newer, some (like Fidelio) set in the Peninsula, alongside others by Iberian composers?
Richard Pairaudeau
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