New York’s Met Opera debuts ‘Ainadamar’ about Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca and his muse 

On the first day of rehearsal for “Ainadamar” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Brazilian director and choreographer Deborah Colker led the singers, dancers and soloists in an exercise in movement. 

Although opera stagings are sometimes static, with singers standing, facing forward and singing, Colker said that she wanted a more kinetic, fluid staging to complement the musical rhythms and the story that “Ainadamar”tells.

“It’s about passion,” Colker said. “It’s about love. It’s about poetry. It’s about what’s happened in the streets. It’s about friendship. And we need to move. We need to dance. We need to sing.”

That is something each opera house’s cast members learn anew, with each staging. The production, which opened at the Scottish Opera before going to Wales and Detroit, plays through Nov. 9 at the Metropolitan Opera. In the spring, it will move on to the LA Opera. 

“Ainadamar” delves into the relationship between the famous Spanish playwright and poet Federico García Lorca and Maria Xirgu, the actress who was his muse. Xirgu was performing in one of Lorca’s plays in Cuba when the fascists jailed and murdered him in Spain in 1936. The opera is told from her perspective in the final moments of her life, 40 years later.

This is Colker’s first time directing an opera. She runs a dance company in Brazil and has directed Cirque du Soleil’s popular show, “Ovo.” 

“Ainadamar” has been done a lot since it premiered at Tanglewood in western Massachusetts 21 years ago, but Colker’s interpretation leans into the music’s flamenco rhythms and flamenco dancing, according to Argentinian-born composer Osvaldo Golijov who created the music (the libretto is by David Henry Hwang). 

Golijov said that he was surprised and delighted by the results. 

“It’s a real revelation for me,” Golijov said. “Because I never imagined that the opera could be danced from top to bottom.”

When the curtain rises on “Ainadamar,” a man does a Spanish dance surrounded by a circular, beaded curtain. A video of a bull is projected behind him as the sound of hoofbeats melds into flamenco rhythms.

That kind of physicality runs throughout the performance — something that soprano Angel Blue, who plays Xirgu, stressed as well.

She said that at one point during the show, “I’m doing a very deep squat, and the dancers are actually assisting me and pulling me up.”

It took a lot of rehearsal: “We had, I don’t know, how many hours a day of training to be able to do that — there’s those two specific moves in that scene that are very hard to do.”

Blue, who’s sung Puccini and Gershwin at the Met, but calls herself a “theater kid” at heart, said it was a liberating process.

 “Deborah created a space that was safe to rehearse in,” the singer said.

The rehearsals were so creative and open, she added, “maybe that’s why this is my favorite opera that I’ve been in, in my professional career, as an opera singer.”

Mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack plays the passionate, doomed playwright in what is called in opera a “trouser role.” She said when she was offered the part, “They were very clear that it was a very physical production, and that I was going to have to move on the stage, not just sing.”

Mack, born in Argentina and raised in the United States, danced as a little girl, but not since. When she joined the production, it took a lot of practice, the singer recalled: “I remember in Detroit taking the fans home to work on my little choreography in my hotel room. But it’s been a real, wonderful environment, too, because Antonio, the flamenco choreographer, is the most patient and wonderful man. And so, he really made the process a happy one.”

Antonio Najarro, who ran the Spanish National Ballet, was brought in to work on the flamenco moments in the opera, but also add contemporary flourishes. 

“Deborah [Colker], she wanted everybody singing, everybody dancing, everybody acting,” Najarro said. “The goal, it was that you don’t have to know who is the singer, who is the dancer. I think this is amazing in this opera.”