Below is the full version of my review of Thursday night's CSO concert from Saturday's Chicago Sun-Times.
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Golijov's work makes listeners yearn for his source material
'Ainadamar' is spectacle, not spectacular
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
To Tues., Feb. 12
SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED
Ainadamar, the much-anticipated 2003-05 opera-oratorio by composer Osvaldo Golijov, scored spectacle points Thursday night at Orchestra Hall, but landed artistically with a thud.
Golijov, the multiculti darling of many coastal critics, has had works played here that have ranged from the thrilling pageantry of his St. Mark Passion at Ravinia to the dull, derivative Last Round with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra downtown and on a 2007 Florida tour. Ainadamar itself had a one-night stand at Ravinia in 2006.
The CSO Mead composer-in-residence, Golijov is eclectic to the point of being voiceless in many pieces. His touchstones -- Spanish and Latin American music, Middle Eastern riffs and tonalities and Jewish themes -- are revisited so regularly and unoriginally that one is left longing for the vibrant source material rather than its sampling.
The libretto for Ainadamar packs a lot into its 75 minutes, giving many points of reference for Golijov's mixmaster musical approach. The title translates as "Fountain of Tears," the Arabic name for the site near Granada where Andalusian playwright-poet Federico García Lorca, just 38, was assassinated in 1936 by Fascist forces. The metaphor is made obvious, thanks to constant repetitions by Golijov and librettist David Henry Hwang.
García Lorca's life, loves and death could alone make a full-length opera, but in this one-act we also hear the story of 19th century Spanish revolutionary Mariana Pineda and of García Lorca's muse, actress Margarita Xirgu, who died in exile in 1969.
Redemption of this mishmash comes from the powerful singers playing Xirgu and García Lorca, soprano Dawn Upshaw and the rising mezzo Kelley O'Connor, respectively. Having García Lorca, an open homosexual in a highly conservative environment, embodied as a woman is brilliant, at least with O'Connor, the role's creator, weaving a spell of seductive ambiguity.
The pairings of the two leads, joined in brief trios by soprano Jessica Rivera, create lyrical effects.
But effects are what this piece is really about, not content. Brilliant flamenco guitarist Adam del Monte and vocalist Jesus Montoya are layered on top of an ensemble of CSO players, wasted except for the excellent percussion parts and performance. Recorded noises, sounds and speech range from the gimmicky (cries of the Fascist leaders), to the cheap (falling water), to the grotesque (a rhythmic ballet of gunshots). The solo voices are needlessly and distractingly amplified at the composer's behest. Conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya kept things moving as much as possible.
Golijov has been more of a rent-a-name composer here the past two seasons than someone actually writing new compositions and/or being in residence. (He lives and teaches in Massachusetts and has lately been busy with jobs in New York and Hollywood as well.) But as the empty seats Thursday night attested, his name, and his work, belong to worlds other than great symphonic music.
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