Argentine opera producers, prevented by the country's economic and
political crisis from importing foreign talent, are increasingly turning to
local resources to maintain a longstanding tradition of numerous and lavish
stagings.
Opera companies in Argentina have long depended on well-established figures from abroad. However, the financial crisis that began last December has reversed the trend. Argentines are now increasingly turning inwards to look for ballet régisseurs, singers and opera conductors. Financially strapped by the peso's devaluation, Buenos Aires' leading company, the Teatro Colón, has opted for the local talent it used to reject. Argentine-born singers such as Víctor Torres, Virginia Tola, Marcelo Lombardero and Susana Moncayo, among others, will be featured in the 2002 season.
The country's staggering financial difficulties do not seem to have stopped independent producers from proceeding with their plans. According to opera expert Gustavo Otero, Argentina managed to produce 49 full-fledged operas in 2001 — three times the average number of productions staged in previous years — in the midst of a four-year recession. For the upcoming season, which begins this month, Buenos Aires alone will see some 30 operas. Productions are also planned in such other major cities as Córdoba, Mendoza, Rosario, Salta and Tucumán.
Among the productions already announced by the smaller theaters of Buenos Aires are the original version of Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges and a rare staging of Henry Purcell's 1691 semi-opera King Arthur, directed by two Argentines, conductor Andrés Gerszenson and his régisseuse Florencia Sanguinetti, with the participation of the Juventus Lyrica Choir and the Symphony Orchestra of Rosario, a city some 250 miles northwest of Buenos Aires.
Critics have praised the the Colón's current production of Kurt Weill's The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, which features baritone Eduardo Cogorno, the artistic director of a renowned independent opera house, La Scala de San Telmo. The production itself has local roots: the singer Marcelo Lombardero staged La pequeña Mahagonny, an abridged version of Weill's work, at San Telmo in 2001. The production was subsequently taken to France and its cast is now prominently featured in the current, larger production at the Colón.
Despite Mahagonny's critical success, with an indefinite bank holiday preventing operagoers from withdrawing their money, ticket sales have been slow. This week, the theater announced that it would offer the opera for free, hoping to draw more spectators.
Composer and conductor Eduardo Casullo, who heads the independent group Opera Abierta in Buenos Aires, is currently organizing a three-day opera festival to be held in June, with an all-local cast. "Around 90 people responded to our call [for singers] and are ready to work," he says. "We have received [the rights] for about 12 operas, of which we plan to stage six." All are by local composers.
The biggest difficulty, according to Cogorno and other experts, is reducing costs. One method is getting musicians to play for free, or at the lowest possible rate allowed by their unions. In many cases, singers perform without any remuneration at all, and the musicians are drawn from juvenile symphonies, which abound in Argentina, whenever more seasoned professionals are not available.
Juventus Lyrica, another Buenos Aires-based independent group, had been using the Teatro Avenida for its small productions. The Avenida, a lavish theater originally built by the then-large Spanish community at the turn of the 20th century, mainly for zarzuelas and operettas, has now become the seeding ground for future stars of the Colón.
Régisseuse Ana D'Anna, who leads Juventus Lyrica, told La Nación that, "Poverty has made the Colón hire all of our singers. We must have done something right."
In recent years, most young Argentine singers had to go overseas — particularly to Europe — if they wanted to be recognized in their home country. That was the case for such now-renowned opera stars as José Cura, Marcelo Álvarez, José Lima, Darío Volonté and Bernardo Fink.
Commenting on the new trend during a recent visit to New York, Álvarez said,
"It's marvelous. Finally, Argentina is going to discover its own enormous vocal
and staging resources. Something good has come out of this crisis, after all."
