Ainadamar: The Spring of Tears

Ainadamar - the Spring of Tears in Granada in Spain, the site of the execution of the poet and playwright Lorca in the Spanish civil war. Granada, where the stones cry out for Mariana Pineda in Lorca's play about this 19th century revolutionary martyr. Mariana Pineda, Federico Garcia Lorca, Margarita Xirgu, each brought to life in Osvaldo Golijov's amazing opera "Ainadamar" which Dorit and I saw last night. Ainadamar, from the Arabic, meaning Spring of Tears ... a linguistic neighbor also to the Hebrew which would be Ain Ha'Dma'ot. Ainadamar, an opera in which each generation sings to the next and teaches of art, freedom, poetry. Golijov would be too modest to place himself in this line, but this opera places him firmly there.

The music is alive with the story it tells, the memories it unfurls. These characters have been singing these rhythms and harmonies since they were born, and only now, through Golijov, can we hear it. The story of the fascist campaign against freedom and love and poetry, which has played out for centuries, is bared before us. Xirgu starts knowing Pineda and Lorca are political revolutionaries, and ends knowing they are poets and lovers of freedom.

I am not linking to the CD. Go and see the opera. You missed it in Boston - but find it and see it.

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