The principal thread running through this season of Momentos Musicales has to do with how music and the artists who present it disseminate their art from the tip of Argentina to the shores of the Arctic Ocean. We have considered radio as a prime mover of music through the airwaves and more recently, Carlos and Allison Franzetti spoke in favor of the venerable compact disc.
The more adventurous way to dive into the music and performers throughout Pan America is to blow the dust off your passports and begin crossing borders into Mexico, Central and South America. Not only do you hear the music live, on the streets and in venues both grand and small, but you learn a lot about the varied cultures within Pan America. I asked Carlos and Allison to share their favorite concert venues in the Americas and they spoke with enthusiasm of the Teatro Colón, in Buenos Aires. It is generally considered one of the finest temples for music in the world. Varied theater spaces allow for opera on the grandest scale and then there are more intimate spaces for solo recitals and chamber music. Listen in the link below to hear Daniel Barenboim, Argentine by birth, playing Beethoven, the second movement of the Appassionata Sonata, in the Teatro Colón.
You may recall from episode 13 that Carlos spoke of a fantasy, explaining “One fantasy that I have is to visit the theater Manaus in Brazil, the Opera Theater, which is amazing to have that in the middle of the Amazon.”
The Teatro Amazonas is legendary for its location on the Amazon River, surrounded by lush tropical jungle. Construction of the opera house began in 1884. The house was inaugurated on New Year’s Eve in 1896.
Good luck to Carlos Franzetti if he ever makes it to Manaus. For that matter, good luck to anyone who makes that trip, especially if it's made entirely on the river. That is the setting of “Florencia en el Amazonas,” an opera by the Mexican composer Daniel Catán. I had the good fortune of seeing “Florencia” when it got its first staging at the Metropolitan Opera, in New York. The opera didn't have all that much difficulty crossing the border from Mexico to the US – it was commissioned by the Houston Opera. However, it took persistent nudging from Andrea Catán, wife of Daniel, to finally get the full attention of Peter Gelb, General Manager of the Met. The decision to stage the opera, in 2023, finally reopened the Met to Spanish-language opera. It had been almost 100 years since the Spanish language had been sung at the Met, when Manuel de Falla's “La vida breve” had played in 1926.
Yes, there are other operas written and performed over the vast range of Pan America, but nothing like Catán's amazing score, which is romantic, impressionistic, and overwhelmingly beautiful. The opening of “Florencia” is so fresh and scenes within the Amazonian jungle are full of atmosphere. Sadly, when the boat carrying Florencia Grimaldi, incognito, to the Manaus opera house for what would be a rare, final performance by the legendary singer, the city was enveloped in a cholera epidemic. No one was allowed to disembark but Florencia as she transforms into a butterfly. It's really a marvelous bit of musical storytelling.
