Cuba Libre (Opera)
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| Title: | Cuba Libre |
| Shape: | Opera in 20 pictures |
| Original language: | German |
| Music: | Cong Su |
| Libretto : | Daniel Call |
| Premiere: | March 19, 2005 |
| Place of premiere: | Theater Erfurt |
| Playing time: | according to the program 1 ½ hours, according to the performance material 2 ¼ hours |
| Place and time of the action: | Cuba, 1950s to 1990 |
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Cuba Libre is an opera in 20 pictures that was commissioned for the Erfurt Theater . The Chinese composer Cong Su set Daniel Calls ' libretto to music , which is based on motifs from the autobiography of the Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas .
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Towards the end of his life, Reinaldo is in exile in New York. There he remembers individual events in his life and important events in Cuba's history. The focus is less on historical events than on human emotions. Reinaldo's fate is representative of that of many artists who fled into exile from Nazi Germany.
The youthful Reinoldo Arenas joins the rebels under Fidel Castro . After his victory he participates in the government program for the education and training of young people. However, he quickly realizes that it is another terror regime and becomes its bitter opponent. Arenas' first novels attracted attention in Havana's literary circles. In these early days of the Cuban Revolution , Arenas searches for his identity as a homosexual and as a writer. After a writing competition, he was given a position at the national library. When the pressure on homosexuals and artists increased in the late 1960s, Arenas tried in vain to flee Cuba. He is arrested as a "counter-revolutionary" and taken to a labor camp. Only after he has submitted to the regime is he released. In 1980 he succeeds in leaving Cuba and emigrating to the USA.
The twenty pictures in the Erfurt Theater program booklet have the following names:
- Cuba, a tourist paradise
- Reinaldo's desperation in exile
- Castro's daughter Alina
- The anti-Castro demonstrators in front of the UN
- Reinaldo's family and life in the country: nature and sexuality
- Reinaldo experiences a Santería ceremony
- The hope of an improvement in the political situation is shattered by the death of Chibás, the bearer of hope
- Reinaldo and his childhood sweetheart Carlos
- The rise of Batista to power frightened Reinaldo's family
- Reinaldo experiences love and jealousy
- Carlos is having fun in the whorehouse
- Reinaldo joins the revolutionaries
- Castro's revolution wins
- Death rules
- Alina wants to go to Paris
- Many children are sent to the United States
- The black market is flourishing and violence reigns
- Thousands flee across the sea, among them Reinaldo
- Reinaldo tries to complete his literary work
- Death wins over him
layout
The orchestra of the opera includes the following instruments:
- Woodwinds: 3 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons
- Brass: 3 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 tuba
- 4 timpani, percussion
- guitar
- Strings: 8 first violins, 7 second violins, 6 violas, 5 cellos, 4 double basses
- Keyboard
The composer Cong Su wrote in the foreword to the opera that he wanted to avoid Caribbean folk music as much as possible in order to avoid the “Cuba cliché”. Cuban elements are only sporadically recognizable in harmonies, instruments or individual tones. Instead, he attempted “New World Music” in the sense of a crossover and supplemented his own East Asian tonal language with African and Caribbean elements as well as techniques of contemporary Western composition. He hoped "with this opera to have written a musical language in harmony with world culture without borders between serious and popular music".
Work history
The idea for the opera came from the composer Cong Su and the director John Dew . Since Dew is from Cuba, Cong Su suggested writing an opera about Cuba. His proposal for a story about the daughter of Fidel Castro was Dew "not theatrical enough". He suggested linking its story with that of the Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas and calling the opera Cuba Libre . The Dortmund Theater , headed by Dew at the time, commissioned the playwright Daniel Call with the libretto. Cong Su received the finished text in September 1998. It took him almost two years to compose the piano reduction. He created the orchestration together with Ralf Wienrich .
The Erfurt Philharmonic Orchestra , the Erfurt Theater Opera Choir and the Philharmonic Children's and Youth Choir of the Erfurt Music School played at the premiere on March 19, 2005 in the Erfurt Theater. Karl Prokopetz was the musical director . Directed by John Dew. The stage was by Thomas Gruber and the costumes by José Manuel Vazquez. Erik Fenton (Reinaldo), Melih Tepretmez (Carlos), Christina Rümann (Alina / Ofelia 2), Denis Lakey (speaker / priest / Coco), Elvira Soukop (grandmother), Peter Umstadt (Fortunato), Anja Augustin (Eufrasia / Naty), Juan Carlos Mera-Euler (grandfather), Susanne Rath (Mercedita / Ofelia 1), Albert Pesendorfer (The Old One), Jörg Rathmann (Hiram) and Reinhard Becker / Thomas Briesemeister (town crier).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cuba libre (UA 19.3.2005) at the Theater Erfurt ( Memento of 2 March 2016 Internet Archive ).
- ↑ a b c d program booklet for Cuba Libre. Theater Erfurt, season 2004/05
- ↑ a b Cuba Libre in the “Zeitgenössische Oper” catalog at Edition Peters, p. 44 (PDF) ( Memento of November 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on March 3, 2016.
- ↑ Performance material from Edition Peters , accessed on March 3, 2016.
- ↑ a b Cong Su: Foreword to the opera Cuba Libre. In: Program for Cuba Libre. Theater Erfurt, season 2004/05, p. 12 f