Elizabeth Caballero as Florencia.
Photo by David Allen.
Daniel Catan’s
Florencia en el Amazonas
April 20, 2024
In 1996, when Daniel Catan’s opera premiered at Houston Grand Opera, he seemed to have no idea that he was leading a revolution. Neither did the critics. Although they paid due tribute to the composer’s impressive abilities, they described his traditional approach, reminscent of Debussy and Strauss, as “quaint.”
Since then, a lot has changed. New works like Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking and Andre Previn’s A Streetcar Named Desire wrested opera away from the musical experimentation of the 20th century and returned it to the storytelling and beautiful singing of its past.
I had the good fortune of seeing Florencia at Seattle Opera in the early 2000s, and although I found the music thrilling, the production was a little static. The opera spends much of its time on interior lives, and that’s always a bit of speed bump for stage directors.
As it turns out, the real home for Florencia is San Jose, a city with a rich Hispanic culture, where the local opera company already offers supertitles in both Spanish and English. OSJ has created a production that’s musically and visually gorgeous, never dull, and that features a cast full of Latine performers.
Marcela Fuentes-Berain’s libretto takes us on a river cruise shadowed by celebrity. The world-famous opera star Florence Grimaldi is returning to her native town of Manaus to re-open the opera house. She is surrounded by fellow travelers who represent various permutations of love. Alvaro and Paula (Efrain Solis and Guadalupe Paz) are the bickering long-marrieds. Rosalba and Arcadio are the youngsters, fully occupied with identity crises when they’re rudely interrupted by romance (my bandmate described this as a very Millennial behavior).
The third version is Florence herself, who sacrificed her feelings for a butterfly hunter, Cristobal, to pursue her career. Her return brings the hope of a reunion. She spells out her conflicted feelings in Florencia’s opening aria, a terrifically challenging piece with many peaks and valleys. Soprano Elizabeth Caballero handles the scene with aplomb, displaying a level of control over her top notes that is otherworldly. A similar aria opens the second act, after a storm has deposited the passengers on a riverbank.
Other vocal treats may be found with Alexa Anderson, who performs Rosalba with similar soprano agility, and the strong lyric tenor of Cesar Delgado as Arcadio. The duets between these two are luscious and charming. I found Rosalba to be the most intriguing character of all. Her fangirl pursuit of the great Grimaldi is as deep and Swift as the Amazon currents. The richest moments come when she’s actually talking to the great diva (who’s traveling incognito) and doesn’t know it.
Solis and Paz bring a different kind of magic to their souring marriage, which changes in a flash when one of them appears to be lost in the storm. Bass-baritone Vartan Gabrielian plays the Captain with a great joie de vivre. Baritone Ricardo Jose Rivera centers the more surreal scenes, his Riolobo acting as a human bridge between the present-day world and the Amazon’s indigenous past.
Director Crystal Manich does an amazing job of keeping this all moving, beginning with a market scene that almost bursts off the stage. She is helped tremendously by the ingenious set design of Liliana Duque-Pineiro. Various features of a vaporetto riverboat - the paddlewheel cover, the bridge, a removable helm - are shifted from scene to scene, seemingly moving the action from one part of the deck to another.
Costume designer Ulises Alcala makes the most of the South American palette, notably with Alvaro’s white dinner jacket and Rosalba’s jade-green dress. The capper is Florencia’s stunning final-act gown, a dazzling array of blue, purple and red, designed to represent her transformation into the Emerald Muse butterfly that her Cristobal was pursuing. This and many other tableaux in the production are so vivid that they resemble living paintings.
Conductor Joseph Marcheso and his orchestra were right at home with Catan’s score, as lush and verdant as the Amazon jungle, its unique timbral blend leaning on flute, clarinet and harp and augmented by marimba, steel pan and djembe. The sonic flow gives the opera a dreamlike, enchanting feel.
Through May 5 at California Theatre, 345 South First Street, San Jose. $55-$195. operasj.org, 408/437-4450. OSJ’s ‘24-’25 season incudes The Magic Flute (Sept. 14-29), La Boheme (Nov. 16-Dec. 1), Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle (Feb. 15-March 2) and Hector Armienta’s Zorro (April 19-May 4).
Michael J. Vaughn is a 40-year opera critic and the author of 29 novels, including his recent release, Punks for the Opera, available at Amazon.com.
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