Ainadamar, by Osvaldo Golijov / by David Hwang

The Argentinian composer Osvaldo Golijov’s 80-minute opera Ainadamar (Fountain of Tears) unfolds chiefly in the head of the aged actress Margarita Xirgu (Angel Blue), in her youth a muse to the incendiary Spanish playwright Federico García Lorca (Daniela Mack). Beginning in pulsating flamenco, the score dissolves in the end to an ethereal trio inspired by the precedent of Richard Strauss in Der Rosenkavalier, the third voice in Golijov’s mix being that of Nuria, Xirgu’s brilliant protégée. The flamenco singer Alfredo Tejado appears (but not in the trio) as the Falangist politician who takes charge of Lorca’s execution, an event that David Henry Hwang’s libretto borrows from the historic record. What’s the whole fantasy about? Oh, just life, death, art, self-immolation.

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