A New Opera by Mexican Composer Gabriela Ortiz and Visual Artist Rub始 Ortiz Torres is premiered
under the baton of Carmen Helena T四lez during the Indiana
University School of Music Summer Festival
Smuggling and betrayal. Myth and reality.
Can fiction be truer
than fact or reach a layer of truth that the facts don't make accessible?
(The image is a still from Rub始 Ortiz Torres's video for ﾁUnicamente la verdad!. All rights reserved.)
These intriguing issues and others were explored in the Indiana
University Jacobs School of Music's production of Gabriela
Ortizﾕs ﾁUnicamente la Verdad! (Only the Truth!) on Aug. 8 and 9 at 8
p.m. in downtown Bloomington's Buskirk-Chumley Theater, at the conclusion of
the Indiana University Summer Music Festival. This world premiere was the
second of two collaborations in the 2007-08 season between the Indiana
University Contemporary
Vocal Ensemble and the Latin
American Music Center, the first of which was the collegiate premiere of
Osvaldo Golijovﾕs Ainadamar. The opera was produced and conducted by
the director of both organizations, Carmen Helena
T四lez, with staging by the up-and-coming Ecuadorean director Chia Pati撲
and production design by Konstantinos Mavromichalis.
Labeled a "videopera," the work embraces narrative
styles and elements from contemporary music, art video, tabloid journalism,
analytical scholarship, popular Mexican music and, of course, opera. For many
years, Mexicans everywhere have known about Camelia "la Tejana"
(Camelia ﾒthe woman from Texasﾓ), who was the subject of many corridos -- a form of Mexican ballad --
popularized by the famous band Los Tigres del Norte and others. Camelia had
dared to kill her lover, who betrayed her after they smuggled marijuana over
the border together.
The concept and the libretto by the well-known artist Rub始 Ortiz-Torres compiles excerpts from several news pieces (in print, television, radio and even academic scholarship) about the return of the "real" Camelia. The opera's narrative reconstructs her "true" story of trafficking marijuana and becoming a murderer for love. Rub始 Ortiz-Torres also filmed several video pieces and one central video sequence which propels the motivation for the opera, and which lays a discourse in dialogue with the action on stage. Along with the story of Camelia, the opera also examines the peculiar culture of the border between Mexico and the United States, and the legacy of the corrido as a dying art form that tells the truth in the lives of the Mexican common man.
Gabriela Ortiz is one of the most important
Latin American composers of her generation. With commissions by important
ensembles (including Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Kronos Quartet), this is
her first opera. She freely articulated an expressive language with norte撲
musical elements, electroacoustic segments, and her critically acclaimed
instrumental virtuoso writing.
"A long time ago, I received a commission from the
Organization of American States to write a chamber opera," says composer
Gabriela Ortiz. "When I discussed this with my brother, Rub始, he
suggested that we look at Alarma (a tabloid magazine that claims to
print 'only the truth!') as a point of departure for ideas about popular
stories in the news media that had a particular social impact. We found a piece
of news with shocking visual images about a man who committed suicide because
of a woman, Camelia la Tejana. From that story, we started to conceive the
entire opera. Fact and fiction get mixed up and fuel popular retelling and
mythology. ﾁUnicamente la Verdad! weaves
together these truths and legends, their facts and fictions, ever seeking and
transforming the truth.
The premiere arose great interest and prompted visits on August 8th
and 9th by distinguished
observers. Reviews of the work were very positive (see below). The premiere
was complemented also by two events co-produced by T四lez and distinguished
scholar Marianne Kielian-Gilbert, also of great interest to new opera
composition and production:
Composing
the New Works for Voice. A
Workshop led by composer Sven-David Sandstr嗄 (July 28-August 2, 2008);and Borderland Imaginations: Contemporary
Opera, Media and New Artistic Expressions (Aug. 8-9, 2008)
For more information, including an interview
with composer Gabriela Ortiz, visit http://www.music.indiana.edu/publicity/summer_fest/2008/opera/verdad/index.html