27 years after its premiere, Florence in the Amazonof Daniel Catan, arrives making history on the stage of the New York Metropolitan Opera House (MetOpera for its 2023-2024 season and can be seen in Mexico live broadcast from the venue at Lincoln Center on December 9.
The MetOpera unveiled its programming on Wednesday, in which highlights the production of the first Mexican opera, and sung in Spanish, in just over a century of history that institution. In addition, the 2023-24 season will feature the largest number of premieres, including the work of Catán.
Florence in the Amazon (1996) will be released on next thursday november 16 at the MetOpera theater, one of the largest and most important lyrical art houses on the planet, and on Saturday, December 9, it can be seen live from New York in at least 70 countries, including Mexico, thanks to the series Live in HD which has been screened every year at the National Auditorium since 2008.
The production will be in charge of Mary Zimmerman with the artistic director of the MetOpera, the Canadian Yannick Nézet-Seguin, leading the orchestra and a cast headed by the American sopranos Aylin Pérez (of Mexican parents), in the role of Florencia Grimaldi, and Gabriella Reyes (Nicaraguan parents ), like the journalist Rosalba; English bass baritone Greer Grimsley as the ship’s captain; Italian baritone Mattia Olivieri, as her enigmatic first mate; Guatemalan tenor Mario Chang, as Arcadio, the captain’s nephew; the Venezuelan mezzo Nancy Fabiola Herrera and the American baritone Michael Chioldi, as the couple of Paula and Álvaro.
Unfortunately, No Mexican singer appears in the cast of this Mexican opera.
It also highlights the return of the Mexican tenor Rolando Villazón at the MetOpera, who will play Papageno in nine performances of the traditional Christmas season of The Magic Flute, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in the production sung in English by Julie Taymor, from December 8 to 30. In fact, Villazón will be the only Mexican to appear in the 2023-2024 season of the MetOpera.
Florence in the Amazon It is an opera in two acts lasting one hour and 45 minutes that was composed by the Mexican Daniel Catan (1949-2011) with a libretto by Marcela Fuentes-Beráin. It premiered at the Wortham Theater in Houston, Texas, on October 25, 1996. And it is sung in Spanish and inspired by the magical realism of the novel. Love in the time of choleraby Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
It was commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera, the Los Angeles Opera, and the Seattle Opera, making it the first opera sung in Spanish to be commissioned by one of the great opera houses in the United States. It is the most represented Mexican opera in the international arena in history. In 1997, he had performed at one of the great American houses, the Los Angeles Opera; In Europe it premiered in Heidelberg, in Germany, in 2006, and its last production was in Tenerife, in 202.
In Mexico it premiered on May 27, 1999 at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in a concert version and, curiously, this week the National Opera Company announced a new staged production that will be presented in October (8, 10, 12 and 15) with stage direction by Enrique Singer and concert performer by Iván López Reynoso, with Dhyana Arom in the leading role, Denis Vélez (who won the MetOpera audition in 2020), Gabriela Flores, Evanivaldo Correa and Carlos Arámbula, in the cast.
In Mexico, it has been staged in Guadalajara (2009), Texcoco and Metepec (2016).
The play focuses on an opera diva, Florencia Grimaldi, who returns on the vaporetto. El Dorado to Manausin her native Brazil to sing and search for her lost lover in the Amazon jungle; During the journey, he regrets having left to pursue a career in Europe and succeed on stages like La Scala in Milan. The journalist Rosalba writes the biography of the artist, whom she hopes to interview on the trip.
What seems like a spectacular premiere of Florence in the Amazon at the MetOpera has production design by Riccardo Hernández, costumes by Anna Kuzmanic, lighting by TJ Gerckens, projection design by S. Katy Tucker, and choreography by Alex Sánchez.
The MetOpera announced in a statement that its 2023-2024 season will feature the largest number of premieres in its history of more than a century, which will be together with the Mexican Florencia en el Amazonas: Dean Man Walkingby Jake Heggie, X. The Life and Times of Malcolm Xby Anthony Davis, the second black composer to present a work there after Terence Blanchard, which he premiered in the last year Fire Shut Up in My Bones y The Champion; y The boyde John Adams.
The season begins on September 26 with the premiere of Dead Man Walking. They follow: A Masked Ball, La Bohéme, Carmen (new production), Fire Shut Up in my Bones, The Hours, La Forza del Destino, Madama Butterfly, The Magic Flute, Nabucco, El Niño, Florence in the Amazon, Orfeo ed Euridice, Roméo et Juliette, La Rondine, Tannhäuser, Turandot y The Life and Times of Malcolm X.
The nine operas that can be seen in Mexico at the National Auditorium and commercial cinemas in live transmission from the MetOpera will be: Dead Man Walking, on October 21; The Life and Times of Malcolm X, on November 18; Florence in the Amazonon December 9; Nabucco, January 6th; Carmen, on January 27; The force of Destinyon March 9; Romeo and Juliet, on March 23; The swallow, On April 20; and Madama Butterflyon May 11.
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