everyday opera

“Before darkness overtakes me, Before Night Falls…” This is the mantra that spurs Reinaldo Arenas to finish his massive autobiography, and conclude his final rebellion. It is also one of the first powerful moments of the opera. The opera opens to a fantastic scene showing a typical Manhattan housing complex in the background with a bed a typewriter in front as Lazaro carries in the dying Reinaldo. From that moment on, the audience is taken away into a fantastic and challenging story. The scenery and staging only continues to get better throughout the opera. The stage was filled with wonderful computer graphics and images that changed throughout and kept the audience visually engaged, and at times almost over-stimulated (though I think they were going for that). And since this was a Cuban opera in English, the Fort Worth Opera made an interesting choice and used both English and Spanish supertitles.

Jorge Martin is to be more than applauded throughout this opera. The music itself was of such fantastic quality, and the orchestra was performing at such a high level, that at times it completely stole the show from the vocalists, and practically anything else that was happening. With a wonderful blend of “new music” sounds, as well as lush, almost romantic movements, interspersed moments of “Latin” flavors, and even a bit of jazz, this score definitely had something for everyone. It’s complexity echoed the complexity of the actual story. Martin used some fantastic motifs throughout the piece that lent clues to things that the opera wasn’t outright saying. Before Night Falls has a score that can stand up to just about any opera, and I for one am looking forward to the Albany Records release of the premiere recording. It really is impossible to say too much about how enjoyable the music was in this opera.

But there was more than music here. There was also quite a bit of dancing! However, the dancing was not simply frivolous. Martin used the dancing as a way in which to express some of the more sexual moments of the piece in a “somewhat” subtle way. There were rumblings of people being upset or offended by the homosexual moments within the opera, and a few people did get up and walk out at moments, but the dancing (rather than blatant sex) was a very ingenious way to talk about those important moments in Reinaldo Arenas’ life. I mean one of the end quotes from Arenas is that his death comes not from tyrants, but from his lovers. Plus, the dance scenes were great moments where you could just sit back and enjoy Martin’s orchestral composition skills.

Wes Mason was a great Reinaldo Arenas and sold the part extremely well. His aria before intermission was probably his shining moment in the opera. It was one of the few moments when he was able to really show what he had as a vocalist rather than worry about any acting, dancing, or interaction with others on stage. Seth Mease Carico was a fantastic revolutionary in the role of Victor. He was commanding in his voice and presence, and sold his character perfectly. When it was Victor and Reinaldo on stage, Victor “upstaged” Reinaldo almost overtime. However, it was Jesus Garcia that truly stole the show as far as the males were concerned. His confession video/recit was incredibly visually stunning and the Fort Worth Opera directors should be backing themselves on the back still today with how well that was pulled off. Ovidio was on one side of the stage giving a “confession” for his captors while Reinaldo Arenas was on the other side of the stage as Victor forced him to watch the video being played in real time. Garcia may have had the best moment of the opera when he came in and sang his aria to Reinaldo not asking for forgiveness, but rather imploring him to go on with his calling to fight against the revolutionaries.

The only women involved were Reinaldo’s mother, aunts, and the two muses. The main focus was on the muses. Janice Hall played both Reinaldo’s Mother and his muse “The Sea.” As his mother, Hall had one of the better arias of the first act, and was a wonderful muse in tandem with “The Moon.” It was “The Moon” (performed by Fort Worth Opera Studio Artist, Courtney Ross), however, that truly stole the show. Her high range was extremely powerful and was one of the few voices that was able to truly cut through Martin’s thick orchestral score. She was simply fantastic, and made you wish that the ending of the opera would have been the scene with the two muses around Arenas so that hers was the last voice you heard.

The opera was extremely enjoyable, and we will not be surprised if it ends up as a major player in new opera repertoire. it was a joy and a privilege to be able to see the second ever performance of the piece, and I just wish Jorge Martin would have been there in person so the audience could have shown their gratitude for such an amazing accomplishment.

Also, a hearty congratulations goes out to everyone involved in this year’s Fort Worth Opera Festival. It was extremely enjoyable, every performance was fun and unique and gave a wonderful overall experience to the audiences! Also, we want to thank the fine folks at Everyday Opera for talking us into this endeavor of writing about our hometown festival, and for featuring these blogs on EverydayOpera.com. We’re already excited about the 2011 season! Hopefully these blogs have made you excited too, so check out FortWorthOpera.org, get your tickets for next season, and we’ll see you in Cowtown!

-David Weuste
Rosebrook Classical