Past Production Reviews
1On the nights of February 19 and 20, a large audience gathered at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. The composer Rufus Wainwright presented Prima Donna there , in a so-called visual-symphonic concert. The orchestra led by Bernardo Teruggi took place on the huge stage with their curtains drawn up. The three solo singers were also placed there. In the background, a giant screen announced that it would be in charge of providing images. The show presented as a symphonic-visual concert was intended to interpret some fragments of Wainwright's opera . There were three singing athletes who delved into the characters of the play. A precise lighting accompanied them in their singing moments. The musical writing of the parts played is complicated and at the same time very classical. The melody arises with some ease although the singers must fight a continuous battle between high frequencies of great extension. Guadalupe Barrientos , mezzo-soprano, sang with poise and excellent schooling. His phrasing was crisp and convincing. The soprano Oriana Favero maintained an exquisite singing line and gave the required highs with intensity. The tenor Carlos Ullán knew how to maintain a dialogue with a precise singing line. The texts, in excellent French, also appeared in our language. It is necessary to remember that they were only parts of the opera Prima Donna And so I will briefly describe the argument. Wainwright conceived his presentation as a visual symphonic concert. The singers must fully immerse themselves in three characters in the drama. A singer named Regine Saint Laurent struggles to return to the stage with the role of Eleanor of Aquitaine. The big screen shows scenes from a movie where that soprano appears. She is an older woman who struggles between her artistic cravings and lost beauty. The composer thought of everything as a tribute to María Callas . Some photographs of him appear but we know well that Callas retired from the stage with glory. His dedication to teaching singing was a paragon of virtuosity and he knew how to faithfully transmit what he learned from the great Elvira de Hidalgo along with his own great insights. After the visual symphonic concert, Wainwright performed on piano and sang some of his own songs. For this he covered himself with a large operatic cape with bright gold. Pop music thus invaded the august room of the Colón . The public apparently showed greater enthusiasm for these works. In my opinion, he did not judge the orchestra and the three outstanding singers who gave life to the few scenes of the opera Prima Donna . The echoes of this symphonic-visual concert that have appeared in the media especially mention its second part. I remember that the Metropolitan of New York did not accept Prima Donna . Apparently the objection came from the French. Anyway, in the middle of the Buenos Aires summer, there were many who gathered at the Colón.
