Opera. Three rejects in the form of an opera

Could we find traces of materials to rebuild an opera house, or something similar, in the street waste?

Tres desechos en forma de ópera (Three Scrapsin the Form of an Opera) (for baritone, soprano, clarinet, violin, and double bass) is the first production by thelaperaÓpera company, which premiered at the Teatro Guindalera in Madrid as part of its Off Guindalera 2012 program. The company, created by the author himself, Jorge Fernández Guerra, was born out of the need to reflect on the current situation of opera, a genre that has marked the history of Western music.

Tickets: 6 euros

              *20% discount for students and employees of the University of Navarra

SYNOPSIS

Three musicians and two singers take to the streets to earn a few coins with their show, which is none other than the old but ever-renewed opera. The aim? To entertain their audience, from whom they hope to receive a modest reward in small change, like so many other street performers.

To do so (always singing), they discuss the problems of the institution of the couple, a symbol of another very familiar couple in the 20th century, cinema and opera, even contemporary opera. When certainties run out, the game begins: a statue serves as a talking head to whom they can ask about the doubts that haunt them. And the head, like so many others, from the now famous one inDon Quixote, will tell them what they already know or what they can discover for themselves: that there are no answers.

For baritone, soprano, violin, double bass, and clarinet.

INTERPRETERS

Ruth González, soprano

Enrique Sánchez-Ramos, baritone

Monica Campillo, clarinet

Gala Pérez Iñesta, violin

Miguel Rodrigáñez, double bass

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Music and lyrics: Jorge Fernández Guerra

Stage direction: Vanessa Montfort

Set design: Florentino Diaz

Attached to the address: Khrish Otero

Production: LaperaÓpera Company

Jorge Fernández Guerra

Jorge Fernández Guerra is one of the most prominent Spanish composers of his generation. In addition to his work as a composer, which earned him the 2007 National Music Award from the Ministry of Culture, he has distinguished himself as a music manager and essayist on musical topics, with important responsibilities in the press and in prominent institutions of musical life.

As a composer, his work falls within the scope of the aesthetic paradigm shift that took shape in the 1980s. Later, during his long residence in Paris in the 1990s, he broadened his vision of the transformations that creative music needed to undergo at the turn of the century, including a lucid review of the avant-garde heritage and a new strategy for the social validation of European musical composition.

Vanessa Montfort 

The daughter of a woman from Madrid and a man from New York, she has lived in Madrid since childhood. A novelist, playwright, and journalist, she is the author of the following plays: Quijote Show(Madrid, 2000), Paisaje Transportado (Madrid, 2003), andEstábamos destinadas a ser ángeles(Madrid, 2006), the year in which she won the XI Premio Ateneo Joven de Sevilla with her first novel,El ingrediente secreto(Algaida, 2006), which was well received by critics and the public alike. That same year, she was invited twice by the Royal Court Theatre in London (International Residency for Emerging Playwrights 2007 and Spanish Voices 2008), where she took workshops with leading British playwrights, including Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Martin Crimp, and Simon Stevens, among others. Her time in London resulted in the English translations ofFlashback(London, 2007),La mejor posibilidad de ser Alex Quantz(London, 2008), andLa cortesía de los ciegos(2008). Her novel Mitología de Nueva York won the 2010 Ateneo de Sevilla Novel Prize.

In 2012, he premiered the radio version ofLa Cortesía de los ciegos(TheCourtesyof the Blind) on Radio Nacional de España as part of a project to bring audio fiction back to the airwaves. He is participating in the project alongside playwrights Alfredo Sanzol, José Sanchís Sinisterra, and Juan Mayorga. In March 2012, she premiered her theatrical version ofLa Regenta, a co-production with Los Teatros del Canal in Madrid, which is currently on tour. She is currently devoting herself entirely to literature: she combines writing her new novel with her work as a teacher, giving courses and workshops on playwriting and narrative both in Spain and abroad.