Riveting Reverie: Opera Parallèle’s Ainadamar
… Staufenbiel’s staging was powerfully focused in every scene. The director introduced an atmosphere of mourning even before the opera began, as chorus members, dressed in bloodstained gowns as brides, widows, and children, wandered through the lobby looking like lost souls. (In the scene preceding Lorca’s arrest, Alonso insists that enemies of the state would be “exterminated, even with seeds in their wombs.”) Staufenbiel and designer Matthew Antaky (sets and lighting) devised a two-level stage with discrete playing areas.
Gloria Rowe
San Francisco Classical Voice
