La mujer tigre by Busto, M., S 12 mar 2022, No (2022/2022), Režisēja Fran Pérez Román, Diriģents Manuel Busto

he Maestranza and Lope de Vega theaters in Seville continue to explore a line of joint work to stimulate the creation of new titles, this time falling to the Sevillian composer and conductor Manuel Busto (1987), who has been reaping success for months with La Bella Otero who has the National Ballet of Spain on tour. The tiger woman is the first (great) inclusion of him in the field of opera, a work that will see its premiere on March 12. “ I classify this work as an opera because there is a use of control and organization techniques applied to all the sound parameters of the score-libretto during the work ” explains the author to ÓPERA ACTUAL . "The work was born at a unique moment in Busto's career, in which he seeks to experiment with the "expressive capacity of flamenco", having already done so in chamber music, ballet and symphony" The inclusion of a bailaora and a cantaora in dialogue with a soprano ( Natalia Labourdette, see interview ) logically makes us think of the precedents in this type of dialogue imposed by Mauricio Sotelo. "He comes to flamenco from the depths of his stay in Vienna, however, I do it in a more casual way, almost forced to stumble upon the genre for being curious about knowledge and born close to its roots" , he indicates. In La mujer tigre “flamenco dance is sound, the challenge has been to conceive it from a compositional point of view. I have used random music techniques applied to a flamenco artist so as not to eliminate the freshness and imprint of his aesthetics”. The work is born at a unique moment in Busto's career, in which he seeks to experiment with the "expressive capacity of flamenco" , having already done so in the fields of chamber music, ballet and symphony. The opera was then the next logical step. For its author, the work could be defined as a chamber opera or contemporary scenic tonadilla: "There are a lot of parallels between the tonadilla of the eighteenth century and the lyrical proposal that I propose" , a company that he tackles accompanied by Julio León Rocha as librettist and Fran Pérez Roman as stage director. Waiting to know the results, Busto trusts that the approach of the public does not require more than the desire “to be surprised. He flees from creating works that you have to read a text of intentions to understand, or where the relevant thing is the new sounds that you think you have invented. What is essential is what those sounds that you are looking for transmit because you need them for it” , he reflects. It is difficult to anticipate what La mujer tigre sounds like because its author does not want to reveal too many clues. "I can say that I am very interested in the operatic work of Kaija Saariaho as well as in the expressive use of instruments that are far from the Western tradition and its techniques that Tan Dun does" , he suggests in this regard. On the always thorny issue of vocal writing, Busto prides himself on "knowing very well what he can do with it" due to his own tasks as a director: "My approach involves having as many colors as possible in my palette, from the Renaissance to 21st century, using the ones I need depending on the canvas of the script. And up to here I can say not to make more spoilers ”. – ÓA