In the early 1900s the steamboat El Dorado departed Leticia, Colombia on a journey to Manaus, Brazil, a destination famous for both its isolation in the midst of the Amazon basin and its famed opera house. It's all make believe, based upon a libretto by Marcela Fuentes-Berain and music by Daniel Catán, written in a magical realism style. The opera “Florencia el el Amazonas” asks the listener to believe in the unbelievable, to see the unseen dangers of the Amazon River and its vast basin. Catán says he learned from the Colombian poet and writer Álvaro Mutis of the dangers of river navigation and also about the psychological states the Amazon induces in travelers the way it conjures up their most secret desires and deepest fears.
The opening scene of “Florencia” immediately draws the listener on board the El Dorado, but as the boat travels deeper and deeper into the Amazon basin, whispers of voices come from the dense forests and animals, both real and mythical, adding a mystery to this trip into the unknown. Pre-Columbian myth is everywhere in the shadows. Catán wrote into the score four orchestral interludes, modeling them after those of Benjamin Britten's “Peter Grimes,” but on a smaller scale, they are nevertheless highly effective in propelling the El Dorado, its captain, the crew and the passengers, into a state that was as much myth as reality.
Many composers have sought to express in music the mysteries of the network of rivers which run throughout the great Amazon basin. Flutist Laurel Zucker wrote several suites which describe her own experiences traveling into Central and South America. Drawing inspiration from a Led Zeppelin bass line, Laurel uses pizzicato in the cello and leaping fast scales in the flute line to show the activities of the intelligent, vocal long-limbed brown spider monkeys.
In another instance, Laurel swaps a guitar for the cello to paint a tone picture of the Chan Chich lodge refuge for those exploring tropical latitudes. The Brazilian musicians Uakti, playing on instruments crafted of exotic Brazilian woods, give life to Philip Glass' “Aguas de Amazonia.” This is the Japurá River, which rises in Colombia and wins its way into Brazil, where it eventually joins the Amazon.
Let's return now to the El Dorado nearing its destination of Manaus, where many of its passengers are hoping to hear the famous soprano Florencia Grimaldi sing at the legendary Manaus Opera House. Unbeknownst to her fans, she has been traveling in their midst, incognito through the magical and the real. Daniel Catán’s third interlude describes, through its impressionistic tone, the mystery of this place, the Amazon basin in the story of “Florencia in El Amazonas” ends as the passengers find Manaus in the throes of a cholera epidemic. No one is allowed to disembark. Coffins from the city float down the river, perhaps a reminder of the loss of as much as 90% of the indigenous population of pre-Columbian Latin America due to diseases brought by the Europeans. But now the dark make believe of "Love in the Time of Cholera" is disarmed. Magic wins over reality as Florencia morphs into a butterfly and exits stage right as Catán’s magical score fades away.
PLAYLIST:
Daniel Catán: Florencia en el Amazonas (opening scene)
Patrick Summers, Houston Grand Opera
Albany 531
Catán: Florencia – Interlude 1
Summers et al
Albany 531
Laurel Zucker: The Jabiru Suite – III. Spider Monkey Swing
Laurel Zucker, Richard Locker (cellist)
Cantilena 66050
Zucker: South American Suite – I. Chan Chich
Zucker, Mark Delpriora, guitar
Cantilena 66050
Philip Glass: Aguas da Amazonia – Japurá River
Uakti
Point Music 454064
Catán: Florencia – Interlude 3
Summers et al
Albany 531
