The 2009 season of The Cincinnati Opera features Osvaldo Golijov’s Grammy Award winning opera, Ainadamar, based on the biography of Federico García Lorca. The poet, painter, actor, and playwright faced a tragic fate as an outsider among the crowds, tortured by the dichotomy between his public and private personas.

In 1936 Lorca was murdered by Spanish nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. Since then, speculations about his life and his death, questions about his political sympathies, homosexuality and difficult family life abound. Ainadamar does not attempt to answer these questions directly; rather it tells the story of Lorca’s life through a passionate love story between a man and a woman. While teaching and commemorating Lorca’s life, Ainadamar sheds light on the passion that leads some groups to kill, destroy and silent voices of change. It is an opera about political conflict and its influence on the young generations, told by Lorca’s lover and muse, Margarita Xirgu.

Margarita Xirgu, a veteran actress, worked with Lorca on several plays. In 1927, she opened Mariana Pineda, Federico García Lorca’s first successful play, in the lead role of Mariana, a role she went on to reprise many times. In Ainadamar, Xirgu is about to play Mariana in one final performance and as she stands in the wings of the theater next to her favorite acting student, Nuria, she recalls events for the last time before her own death.

Ainadamar, Moorish for “Fountain of Tears,” is a place in Spain just outside of Granada where it is believed Lorca was murdered. To represent the fountain, the opera opens with the sound of continuous water accompanied by the sounds of horses, trumpets and strong Spanish rhythms.

“Its simplicity is the way it hits you right between the eyes and directly into the heart. What Osvaldo has been able to do in this opera is bring all of his own influences together and out of all these influences bring one multilayered voice that still always sounds like Golijov himself,” said The Cincinnati Opera’s Artistic Director, Evans Mirageas. Osvaldo Golijov’s unique musical language was acquired from his parents, Eastern Europe émigrés to Argentina, who exposed him to classical and chamber music, Klezmer, and Tango.  In 1983, Golijov made Aliyah to Israel and studied with renowned Israeli composer and composition Professor, Mark Copytman, at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy. Later he moved with his wife to the United States and studied with American composer, George Crumb. Golijov’s Grammy Award winning opera, Ainadamar presents this diverse musical heritage with strong moving rhythms and beautiful melodies.

To capture some of the ambiguities in Locra’s story, Osvaldo Golijov has specified that the role of Federico García Lorca be played by a female actor. “We are very lucky in Cincinnati,” Mirageas said, “to have the three protagonists who have been with the opera since the revised version premiered [in 2006]: Dawn Upshaw as Margarita Xirgu, Kelley O’Conor as Lorca and Jessica Rivera as Nuria.” The talented performers are only a small piece of what make The Cincinnati Opera’s version special. “We created a brand new production…The orchestra is such an important part in telling the story and it requires the addition of two flamenco guitars, a Latin percussion section and a musician that operates a laptop computer for all of the various musical sound effects. Those got me thinking- let’s bring them on the stage and create a very simple setting where the actors can work together with the orchestra.” 

The Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra takes part in this production as it has in all 89 seasons of The Cincinnati Opera.  Ainadamar is one of four operas being performed this season in Cincinnati including Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, Verdi’s Don Carlo and Bizet’s Carmen. Aidadamar will be showing July 9th and 11th at 7:30 p.m. For more information visit www.cincinnatiopera.org.