‘Ainadamar’ review: Uncommonly vivacious
The remarkable thing about the latest offering from the ever-venturesome Opera Parallèle – a sumptuous and vividly sung production of Osvaldo Golijov’s “Ainadamar” that had a three-performance run over the weekend at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts – was how much it made of its ultra-thin source material. Sitting through Friday’s opening performance was like watching a virtuoso display of crepe-paper origami.
Written in 2003 and subsequently revised for a 2005 premiere at the Santa Fe Opera, “Ainadamar” is a memorial paean to the Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca. It has a static, cliche-ridden Spanish-language libretto by David Henry Hwang and a rhythmically vibrant but predictable score that relies heavily on repetitions and bland filler merely to make it – gasping and panting with effort – to the 80-minute mark.
Joshua Kosman
San Francisco Examiner
