A voice shouts from the balcony with unbridled sponteneity just before Florencia begins. “Viva la ópera en español.”
We are mere feet away from the podium and close enough to see Yannick Nézet-Séguin turn with a big smile and to lift his arms in mutual appreciation with this enthusiast both acknowledging the welcome and refreshing deviation from the western cannon the Met is known for.
The lights dim, the chandeliers rise, and I soak up the atmosphere of the Metropolitan Opera, our home away from home and this the fulfillment of a goal realized.
I can’t think of a better begin to end my opera journey, or a better companion to hold hands and enjoy it with.
A verdant curtain rises.
The stage is a sumptuous tropic of South American forests and the overture sounds like a rising morning. Characters magnificently adorned have gathered to prepare for a journey down the amazon toward an opulent jewel of the Belle E’poque. An opera house nestled in a forest of monkeys and butterflies.
This opera blends the real and the magical in honor of South America’s literary genre, magical realism.
For the real, there actually is an opera house “Teatro Amazonas” located in Manaus, Brazil built by European rubber barons in 1884 who were exploiting the forest and people for the world’s demand for latex during the Industrial Revolution. Werner Herzog made a monumental movie about it all that’s worth a look especially the first five minutes at least if you love opera.
The opera however is far from a history lesson. The opera is beauty made manifest about journeys and destinations, new love and old, and…
It has puppets. Outstanding puppets!
We laugh with the monkey, marvel at the iguana, and jump when a crocodile swims in front of us (like the tic-toc of Peter Pan). The puppeteers are not dressed in black as they often are. Tonight they straddle the border between reality and illusion and are just as visible as the singers. Dancers meanwhile pirouette beside them gowned as forest animals.
The piranha stick as my favorite. Pink, nimbly nibbling, dancers with fish hinged heads who naughtily pester the ship and its passengers.
Moments of serendipity make the universe feel like a partner in cahoots, “oh you saw fish, I see fish too.” At the Delancey street station following the opera the universe says, “It’s all for you opera lovers. Weren’t those piranha fabulous?”
Musically throughout the opera there is the singular mood of the river’s humid and rippling undulations. The playbill references Puccini, but what I hear is Debussey.
Like sunlight on insect wings the score is Interspersed with colors of the forest, a Macaw here and a poisonous toad there.
Yannick conducting the Met Orchestra is simultaneously large yet sensitive. I gently squeeze Chaltin’s arm who responds with dancing fingers. We’ve been fortunate enough to see him conduct each season since becoming the Mets director. The singers are responding warmly to his lead.
Ailyn P’erez’s arias are gradations of color that from one note to the other transition with the grace of porcelain. Warm forest shades and warmer memories intermingle with cool waters of regret. Her character is here in this jungle and on this boat to recapture the love she gave up for a career as a world renowned opera singer. The duets from the other passengers equally slide in and out of of each others vocal lines, the young lovers and the older bickering couple.
A dramatic shift sweeps the second act. A storm rises and the real threatens the lives of the characters. waves of people and people as waves, the real and the spiritual, the mundane and the magical all merge together post storm amalgamation. A giant butterfly now floats above the stage and the life size boat has shrunk to a size fit for a bathtub.
Puppets return, but now they’re masks of death. Cholera has taken up residence in the city of the opera house. The plot point is inspired by “love in the Time of Cholera,” the book by Gabriel García Márquez.
Our heroine will not be deterred.
The music eases out with soft openess rather than exclamation. I love the confidence and vision of Daniel Catán to finish with mood and not an explosive crescendo. It leaves room for the production to embellish and the final aria give us a fantastic punctuation of costume.
The opera house might have been the intended destination for these character’s journey, but like my writing about 101 operas, the destination was only the impetus to begin something. The incidental magical moments of the journey are what it’s really all about; the people, places, and foods; the adventure away from the Television Set exploring the phenomenal world of the real and infusing it with the passion of our memories and imaginations.
All journeys, be them on a ship, through a career, to Everest, or to see 101 operas are just invitations to oneself to venture out into the world and be receptive to the magical moments the world has to offer.
With this opera, Florencia En El Amazonas, the destination of 101 operas has been reached. The journey however continues.
We’re well past 101 operas now, but they are just for us. My writing returns to the privacy of my journal and lazy mornings in a coffee shop watching the myriad character come and go…
Viva la ópera!
Notes on the Production:
Composer…………………….Daniel Catan
Libretto……………………….. Marcela Fuentes-Berain
Conductor…………………… Yannick Nezet-Seguin
Florencia Grimaldi……….. Aileen Perez
Rosalba………………………… Gabriella Reyes
Alvaro………………………….. Michael Chioldi
Sailor…………………………… Tyler Simpson
Riolobo…………………………. Mattie Olivieri
Paula……………………………. Nancy Fabiola Herrera
Arcadio…………………………. Mario Chang
Hummingbird………………… Dandara Veiga
Heron……………………………. Griffin Massey
Puppeteers…………………….. Chris Ignacio
Pupperteer…………………….. Leah Ogawa
Puppeteer……………………… Tom Lee
Met Opera
11/16
*Last year during parent conferences, me and one of my students parents were talking about books and the next day her child gave me Love in the Time of Cholera to read. The scene with the parrot just knocked me out.My introduction to magical realism in literature was with Julio Cortezar, most famous for the movie based on his story “blow up.” You can think of magical realism as fiction that is 90% realism and 10% fantasy and that possibility of magic hits like that feeling when you know someone’s in the room or love at first sight.
We have seen each performance Yannick Nézet-Séguin has conducted since taking over as music director for the Metropolitan Opera.