Category: art

Spanish version.

Samson et Dalila: not even God could have saved this opera’s limitations
A story of betrayal and unfulfilled expectations: romantically, religiously, and musically.

The opera Samson and Delilah premiered last Friday, 10/20/2017 at 8:00 pm at the Margot and Bill Winspear Opera House in the AT&T Performing Arts Center, located in 2403 Flora Street, Dallas, Texas, 75201. The opera, in three-acts, was created by the French romantic composer Camille Saint-Saëns, and was returning to Dallas for a third time, after previous presentations in 1964 and 1971. The performance featured Olga Borodina as Delilah and Clifton Forbis as Samson, with the conduction of Emmanuel Villaume.

Operas containing biblical stories were taboo in XIX century France, so Samson and Delilah was first played in Germany, becoming relatively popular since then.

The plot outlines the turbulent relationship between Samson –a Jew- and Delilah –a philistine-, the infamous couple from the Old Testament. They do not resemble the type of love embodied by Romeo and Juliet, being members from enemy castes that fall in love, a recurrent theme since Purgatory’s Canto VI depiction of the Montecchi and the Cappelletti.

The opera couldn’t really maintain all the expectations laid down during the overture, which welcomes such an intensity and passion that makes it hard for the rest of the opera to keep up, hence falling short in comparison. Most of the opera does not reach the height of other works, such as Danse Macabre, from Saint-Saëns.

As outlined previously, the opera does not recover after its emphatic introduction. However, it has some praiseworthy tunes, such as a bacchanale, and a couple of commendable arias, among which Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix (Softly awakes my heart) resulted particularly appealing to the audience.

Toward the opera’s resolution, particularly during the third act, most of the scenes are filled with recurrent, almost recursive, tunes, as if Saint-Saëns had ran out of inspiration by then. At this juncture, we have more dancing than singing and the opera becomes a symphony, which takes away from the dramatic overtone the plot was building up to.

Conversely, the scenography and visual effects were handled masterfully. The opera’s climax, the falling of the temple, was able to elicit shocking responses and genuine reactions within the audience. Also, the third act presented a few scenes in where Samson sings while the rest of the cast stands idly, thus making him a greater focus of attention. This technique was not only a clever of enhancing the plot’s message but it was an absolute visual success. Most of such scenes were so perfectly executed that they seemed Renaissance paintings, a true photographic achievement and an impressive job by choreographer Nycole Ray, make-up designer Dawn Rivard, costume designer Carrie Robbins, and set designer Peter Dean Beck.

Even though the opera was originally written in French by Ferdinand Lemaire, as it was presented to an American audience, it featured English subtitles. Such subtitles made sure to capitalize any references to God, either in name or through personal pronouns; making him the great, albeit hidden, protagonist. Nonetheless, this opera wasn’t really about Samson, Dagon, love, or God for that matter, but about Delilah, a persuasive and pragmatic woman.

Samson’s most impressive biblical actions get omitted in the opera. And the performance makes clear how extraordinary masculine strength, such as in the cases of Samson and Hercules, can only be tamed by feminine seductiveness.

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

AT&T Performing Arts Center, 2403 Flora Street, Suite 500, Dallas, Texas, 75201

Spanish version available in Bicidue.

Electra takes place in Argos a few years after the Trojan War. Even though the work showcases Electra as the main character, Orestes and Clytemnestra are in fact at the center of the plot.

The play was directed by Kevin Moriarty and displayed on Annette Strauss Square by the Dallas Theater Center. This adaptation was an interesting take on a classical play, especially because it used experimental techniques in a successful fashion. The actors and the audience interacted constantly and the screenplay was very dynamic and fluid, with no interruptions such as life itself. Most of the time, the audience experienced the actors talking directly to them, as if they were the cameramen in a film.

The play sides with a very patriarchal and androgenic (male-centered) worldviews. Indeed, King Agamemnon’s crimes are mostly ignored. Agamemnon is portrayed as a victim when he was never so. Let us remember how he sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to allow the Greek fleet reach Trojan soil safely, just as Jephthah did in the Bible.

Electra displays brotherly bonds and familial stress and disagreements masterfully. This is especially a work about revenge and its cyclical nature but also about forgiveness (or the lack thereof) and earthly justice.

Electra presents the world as a continuous sequence of causal events. We see how every action has a reaction (Newton’s third law), and every crime has a punishment (from now on, we should probably refer to Sophocles before we refer to Dostoyevsky). For instance, let us explore how the following events were interrelated:

1. Paris chooses Aphrodite (who promises Paris the love of most beautiful woman in the world) in despite of Hera and Athena (Apple of Discord event).
2. Paris snatches Helen from Sparta and takes her to Troy, even though she was married to Menelaus.
3. Trying to rescue Helen, the Greeks declare war on Troy.
4. The Greek fleet gets delayed in Aulis and Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia to please Artemis.
5. Clytemnestra takes Aegisthus as her lover and kills Agamemnon. Aegisthus becomes king.
6. Electra allows Orestes to escape and he returns years later to kill his mother and her lover Aegisthus.
7. Orestes gets persecuted by the Erinyes or Furies because of his crime.

I disliked the fact that Pylades does not appear in the plot and is instead replaced by an old pedagogue, who assimilates his part. Furthermore, Agamemnon assumes the chorus’s role at times and operates as Orestes’s conscience. The Electra complex from Jung’s Neo-Freudian psychology describes how daughters compete with their mothers for the attention of the fatherly figure. You can definitely see how Electra gets more drawn to his father, albeit in a non-sexual way (it is extremely common to see the psychosexual approach misinterpreted and misrepresented).

The play ends with the best possible scenario and both Orestes and Iphigenia (she surprisingly survived her sacrifice, such as Isaac did in the Bible) get reunited after Orestes is finally forgiven by the Gods: only a divine intervention can prevent future bloodshed and end the cyclical nature of revenge. It is very common for Greek myths to have different versions, especially based on the historical period in which they were written on. Also, Electra proves how violence cannot go on forever and, as Gandhi said: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

Thursday, March 23, 2017
The Dallas Opera, 2403 Flora Street, Suite 500, Dallas, Texas 75201

Spanish version available in Relatos Sin Contrato.

Having wings doesn’t mean you can fly. This is especially true about Giacomo Puccini’s opera Madame Butterfly, which is staged on 1904’s Nagasaki and has three acts. The libretto was originally written in Italian by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. The plot is based on a short story by John Luther Long.

The opera’s main character is Cio-Cio San (Madame Butterfly), a 15-year old Japanese girl who gets engaged to B. F. Pinkerton, a US Navy lieutenant stationed in Japan. The plot revolves around freedom and draws an analogy to Rousseau’s maxim: “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” Butterfly can break away from her duties and customs, but not from her feelings, which would end up destroying her.

Pinkerton owns the house as he owns the wife, and yet cancelling both contracts would come very easy to him. An analogy can be drawn to the ninth commandment (“Thou shalt not covet thy neighour’s wife”) as if females and property were one and the same.

Pinkerton is obviously not in love with Cio-Cio San but longs to get back to America to remarry. Butterfly proves her love once and again fighting against familial pressures (represented by his uncle Bonze), renouncing her ancestral religion, nationality, and family, embracing Christianity, bearing Pinkerton’s son, rebuking her maid Suzuki’s advices, and rejecting Prince Yamadori’s proposal after Pinkerton leaves to America.

After being inconsolable for several years, Cio-Cio San gets a glimpse of hope when she learns that Pinkerton is returning to Japan. She commits suicide when she finally realizes that her feelings are not simply not reciprocated but intended for someone else: Kate Pinkerton. Pinkerton gets temporarily taken aback once he understands how much Butterfly really loves him but one couldn’t help but think that Pinkerton was not genuine or moved by emotion but by regret, remorse, and guilt.

Madame Butterfly is more a clash of feelings than it is a clash of cultures. Puccini is the Bel canto (beautiful singing) composer who never labeled himself so. His aria “Un Bel Di Vedremo (On Fine Day We Shall See)” would be enough to prove it. Puccini inserts a wide number of popular tunes within his operas, such as Tosca’s E Lucevan Le Estelle and Turandot’s Nessun Dorma.

— Spoilers ahead —
7 / 10

Spanish version available in Revista La Oca Loca.

I had a chance to attend De Troya‘s premiere last Friday, 05/05/2017 and I enjoyed a crude yet symbolic and rewarding acting display.

The story, written by Caridad Svich and directed by David Lozano, outlines the mishaps of Mara (Maya Malan-Gonzalez) and Raya (Stefanie Tovar). Filled with symbolism and allusions, the play portrays feminism and victim-hood as being interrelated, as if women were set up to lose this game we call life.

Except for a fleeting reference to Pegasus, the flying horse born from Medusa’s blood, the play lacks mythological references that could have made it stronger. For instance, I would have recommended using Hecate, a Christian-like trinity of Greek origin made up of three different natures: Apollo’s sister Artemis, Selene (the Moon), and Hecate’s infernal representation. In the same way Artemis and Selene have parallel lives in different realms, so do Mara and Raya.

Throughout the play, you can start noticing more and more similarities between both women, as they start taking control over their lives, as they stop being victims. Such a progression is so central to the plot, that you cannot help but ignoring all other characters and regard them as peripheral and unremarkable at best. You could almost smell the environment of violence and despair both Mara and Raya find themselves in.

The plot reminded Michael Apted’s Enough (2002), coincidentally starring an abused and hopeless Hispanic woman named Slim Hiller (Jennifer Lopez), who is trying to escape his possessive, chauvinistic, and androgenic husband. In the same way Slim Hiller starts growing and eventually overcomes his fears and starts fighting back until she prevails, so does Mara. Mara descends into hell and makes it back, even though she probably thought that ending her life would have been easier. Yet Mara, in opposed to Eurydice, does not need an Orpheus to escape from Hades. She has everything see needs, she finds herself. We can also see how Raya grows away from hate and starts welcoming forgiveness, finally adopting a saint-like attitude.

Svich‘s writing is strong and Lozano‘s adaptation is praiseworthy. In despite of a few disconnected scenes, I wholeheartedly recommend De Troya.

Review a synopsis here.

Buy tickets here.