A Magical-Realist Adventure: Florencia en el Amazonas
Celebrated Mexican-American composer Daniel Catán was not one to shy away from an ambitious project. Catán used Nobel prizewinning novelist Gabriel García Márquez’s stories and characters as inspiration for his breakthrough opera, Florencia en el Amazonas, which premiered at the Houston Grand Opera in 1996.
Both novel and opera concern lost love and longing, but wedded to Catán’s exquisite orchestration and the luminous sets of Douglas Provost and Peter Nolle, the story (by librettist Marcela Fuentes-Berain) takes on a whole new dimension this fall as performed by the Arizona Opera.
Florencia en el Amazonas: Magical-Realist Opera in Phoenix and Tucson
A famous opera soprano returns to the Amazon jungle to search for her long-lost lover. She encounters the strange and wondrous on a steamboat journey upriver, along the way facing storms, disease and intrigue—all of which will be worth it if her trip does not end in heartbreak! Directed by Joshua Borths, Florencia en el Amazonas transports audiences to the lush environs of the Amazon, carried along by Daniel Catán’s neo-Romantic score.
Beloved since its debut, Florencia en el Amazonas is a modern classic credited with creating what the Los Angeles Times has called a “new genre of populist opera.”
The Arizona Opera brings Florencia en el Amazonas to Phoenix and Tucson for the first time ever in November 2015. Showtimes are Nov. 13-15 in Phoenix and Nov. 21-22 in Tucson.