Cervantino Fever 2014

As always, yesterday Guanajuato folks filled the main floor and first balcony of Teatro Juarez to be among the first to know this year's International Cervantino Festival program  And always, the speakers felt no need to hurry through their speeches. So here's a joke  I heard afterward:

Guanajuato hillscape behind , Japanese sun on both sides

"A good speech must be like a bikini, short, showing much but leaving something to the imagination." 

Waiting their turn

  Un buen discurso debe ser como un bikini, corto, enseñando mucho, pero dejando algo a la imaginacion.

Whoever made the exuberant video that followed   the speakers knew what what to do. It was short, showing much, but, yes, leaving parts uncovered.

The program is so full  the list that follows is almost like a Thanksgiving dinner described by the cranberries, but here goes:

The opener :Japanese taiko drummers

The closing: Ruben Blades (Panama by way of New York), known as the salsero intelectual.
:
In classical music, two performances by the Arditti Quartet (USA), seven by the Austrian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder playing all the Beethoven sonatas

Three nights of folklorico-the National Folklore Ballet of Amalia Hernandez, the: Nuevo Leon Dance Troupe; and the OSUG ballet folklorico + at least one night of ballet (from Bulgaria)

A concert version of West Side Story (Amor sin barreras)

Jazz and world music as always at the Ex-Hacienda Gabriel de Barrera

Movies, pantomime, acrobats, world class marionette shows

Guanajuato's own Capella Guanajuatense and Zephyrus

Spotlight on Shakespeare: somewhere between half a dozen and a dozen offerings of his plays during this 450th year from his birth, including a local project involving young people from four Guanajuato communities (El Proyecto Ruelas) alredy rehearsing scenes to present

At the Alhondiga, an African woman playing the kora

I'll stop here although I have probably skipped the event (possibly from Mexico) that will propel you to the box office (taquilla) tomorrow when tickets for individual events go on sale.

Despite this horn of plenty, people talk about what is not being done this year."What? only the Entremeses tis year when Cervantes was Shakespeare's contemporary?" (my translation)

A fraction of the audience pouring out of Teatro Juarez

On the other hand: much baroque music and music on Shakespearean themes, literary programs honoring the centennial of the nationally beloved poet Efrain Huerta born in Silao, and art exhibits including Guatemalan textiles and photos by Rodrigo Moya from an archive that has been closed for thirty years; and at the train station every night of the Festival, hip hop, vallenato and other dance music for young people. I always marvel at how the FIC offers something  for every age and taste.

Stay tuned for more on the nooks and crannies that make the Cervantino special.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

  

Cervantino Day 18: Kiss and Cry

I've never seen anything like it and find it hard to put into words what Jeffrey Gantz' of The Boston Globe has already done so well:

"What you see is a film that is screened as it is being shot. Everything is reduced in size, as if reduced by memory. At either end of the stage are miniature sets on long tables, with miniature creatures and people. Downstage center, a toy train runs on an oval track surrounding half-timbered houses and a church. The train has tiny cameras inside, so that when you look at the screen at the back of the stage, you feel you’re on board, rushing toward love, or away from it. Throughout the evening, your attention is torn between the making of the film, as the ensemble runs around wielding cameras and manipulating sets, and the film itself.

Many miniature landscapes were even smaller

The dancing is done by the hands of De Mey and Grégory Grosjean. Their fingers act as legs, naked and seductive, individually expressive. They mime a beating heart, a swimmer, a tarantula. They make love; sometimes it looks more like sexual assault. They ice skate. (The show takes its name from the “kiss and cry” area, where figure skaters sit and await their scores.)

Kiss & Cry

Cutler Majestic Theatre, Boston617-824-8400.http://www.artsemerson.org

Writers:

Conceived by Michèle Anne De May and Jaco Van Dormael

Director:

Eric Schaeffer

Other Credits:

Choreography, Michèle Anne De Mey and Gregory Grosjean, Sound, Dominique Warnier

Presenting organizations:

ArtsEmerson

Date closing:

Saturday, Oct. 12

Ticket price:

$25 to $89

More

• 10/8: ‘Kiss & Cry’ asks: Where did everyone go?

Most of all, they touch.

The score ranges from Handel’s “Lascia ch’io pianga” to . . ."

Thank you, Jeffrey! For me, much of the enchantment came through the reversal in scale, with the fingers larger than the houses, trees, sofas they danced among.

I wish I could see it again.

Cervantino Day 19: Barry Douglas at Valenciana; next years Inviteds; enjoying life in the Press Room

2013 version of The Great Gate of Kiev;
only four of Hartmannn's paintings still exist

The Festival's final event for me, except for viewing the closing fireworks from my street, was Barry Douglas's performance of Moussorgsky's Pictures from an Exhibition. This has been an extraordinary year for the piece at the festival: The Peking Symphony playing Ravel's orchestral version, Douglas playing Moussorgsky's original piano composition, and the Mexican artist Fabricio Vandenbroeck's set of ten black and white prints recreating the themes of Viktor Hartmann'ns work that led Moussorgsky to compose the piece in his memory.

Barry Douglas, arguabably the hardest working musician at the Cervantino with four different concerts under his belt including the whole cycle of Beethoven piano concertos, is to play Brahms and, Schubert during the first half of the concert at Valenciana. With a no-nonsense manner, he gets down to work.

Douglas at his Steinway piano /FIC 41 Claudia Reyes photos of Douglas

Pleased indeed at the audience's appreciation of the Brahms pieces

After ten minutes in the sunshine, the audience comes back into the church,many of us ready to hear one of our favorite pieces. I never knew it could sound like this, with bell-like notes coming from the piano. Each time the Promenade theme recurs, Douglas plays it differently, to give only one example of his interpretive
and technical mastery.

                                          An unforgettable ending to a memorable Cervantino.
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BREAKING NEWS: Next year, Japan will be the invited country and Nueva Leon the invited state.

And here are a few shots of the last hours in the press room where people were sitting  over comida without rushing.and when the security guards eased their standards to let a child and a puppy through.

Last time eating lunch together in the comedor

Photographer Claudia about to stage a photo op

A few minutes ago she was "typing"

Cervantino Festival Day 16 (part 2): World premiere of Bola Negra

live music, instrumental and choral; set of recycled tires

Three Chilangos were on hand for the world premiere of their opera Bola Negra that ran for two nights in the Minas. The work,with its artfully balanced score, staging, acting and  background film presents the point of view of the socially comitted Mexico City triumvirate, Marcela Rodriguez (composer), Jesusa Rodriguez (technical director) and Mario Bellatin (writer of the original story and lyricist.

In the charla afterward, at least one member of the audience disagreed forcefuly with the premise, that both the young murdered women and their paid killers (sicarios) are victims of an unjust society which should be changed.

Jesusa Rodriguez; at the technical rehearsal; note the singers in the tires 

Covering the future audience with blood?

Directed by Rodriguez and Balletin, young Juarez people did much of the filming. The filmed choristers were also youngsters from Ciudad Juarez.

Let us hope the work, underwriten by INBA, and apealing to the young viewers in the balcony, will be staged many times over and keep stimulating discussion..

My take: Having read Robert Bolaño's 2666, much of set in Ciudad Juarez, I was
struck by the greater impact this theatrical work had on me and once again by abundant talent in Mexico despite its inequalities.

Cervantino Day 15: Tony Allen's press conference

The articulate drummer, a Nigerian who now lives in the US filled the Alhondiga, charmed charmed the journalists at his press conference. At the age of seventeen, he started dedicating his life to the drums hasn't looked back.

I have to admit his concert, a group effort, was too noisy for me. Maybe I would have done better with a CD but he said he doesn't bring them to his concerts, likes to concentrate on what he does best, drumming. You can go to Amazon to read about his memoir, titled unsurprisingly Tony Allen.

casual but fashionable in his chartreuse tennies

Cervantino Day 17:Cuatuor Diotama - a golden setting for a jewel of a concert

The eminent French quartet played Jancek, Ravel and late Beethoven. My friend and amateur viola player Nina Johnson has taught me to watch the violist who sometimes plays with the violins, other times with the cello and occasionally solos. Just one of the many opportunities we have in our city to deepen our understanding of the music we hear and broaden the repertoire of music we hear.

Now I wish I had also heard our Capella Guanajuatense playing one of my favorite Baroque composers Marin Marais. The Cervantino program this year is overwhelming.

Another cold night but the Moiseyev dance troupe worth braving it

Shots from different angles on the two big screens

Toni Grenville and I saw them decades ago and both of us still remember them.

New dancers of course, but the same precision, timing, verve and strength. During the second half, the group performed dances from Venezuela, Spain, Argentina and Mexico capturing the spirit of each country. I like the dance events at the Alhondiga best, few of the others my type.

projecting femininity and strength / all photos FIC$! except the first

& in other dances the famed Russian kicks

A few of the growdpleasing sailors with bandoleon player

Would you guess these are Russians dancing the Spanish jota?

Cervantino Day 14: open rehearsal of Bach's St. John's Passion - the musical summit of this year's Festival?

That's my tennis shoe in the aisle/FIC41 Claudia Reyes

I went to the open rehearsal of Bach's work today, with Horacio Franco leading the Cappella Barroca. Franco, one of the world's leading recorder players, founded and directs the early music group of instrumentalists and singers. Bach has been in the wings for most of this year's Festival, with the spotlight on Verdi and Wagner.

I was not the only person listening to this magnificent music sung in the original German (tomorrow night there will be Spanish supertitles).As part of the La comunidad al Cervantino program, residents of several towns in the state came by bus to hear this soaring piece of religious music and witness the amount of polishing an orchestral-concert requires..

The other instrumentalists were on Franco's left

The audience broke into applause after hearing the female soloist. The men singing the evangelist, Jesus and another male part also have beautiful voices.

Franco is an intense, active conductor, much more than is evident in these photos. He even went toward the back of the Compania several times to see how the music sounded from there, then dashed back to the podium. Wearing tight jeans and earrings, he used sweeping gestures that I couldn't catch, but for sure tomorrow night the women will be dressed up and he and the other men wearing tailcoats..

Mama and child listening quietly

Day 13: Astad Deboo's Dance Troupe (India); Comala in the Principal

FIC41 photo/ Claudia Reyes

I didn't know the boss was so agile

 After seeing these Asstad Daboo dancers at their photo op, Jose of the Press Room gave it a try.

A static moment in Comala
FIC41 photo/Claudia Reyes

At six o'clock, in the Principal, the audience saw Clmala, a staged version based on Juan Rulfo's novel.
Pedro Paramo. The work was billed as a staged cantata. In fact, Zohn was a2011 finalist for the music. But for me, the work was notable as physical theatre, enacting the horror of the voices, with the group PUSH doing the honors and Bent Frequency the acting.

As a cast member said afterward, Comala is the kind of work that's hard to classify. So much for the old time genres. Comala is available as a CD. I'd be curious to hear it as a stand alone work, instead of considering the music highlights as I'm accustomed to assume as an avid moviegoer.

Cervantino Day 12: International PEN table at Plaza de los Angeles

I'm with Lucina here before things got noisy;
soon people were stopping by 

The active San Miguel chapter of International PEN, mounted an information in Plaza de los Angeles during the afternoon. The first hour and a half went well with people stopping by but later PEN could not compete with the clowns. Bob Broughton, Tony Cohan, Lucina Kathmann (from SMA; the international vice-president of PEN) and I took part. Table on loan from Bharati Restaurant; La Catrina nearby one of several Guanajuato businesses letting us post announcements.

Another PEN stalwart, Bob Broughton 

Cervantino Day 11 (evening): Murmurs at the State Auditorium after a torrential rain

About five minutes into Murmurs

The main character in her dream world / FIC41photos, Christa Cowrie

Even though I was wearing a red plastic poncho when I set out at seven, I arrived at Murmurs soaked to the knees, but Victoria and Aurelia Thierry's imaginative production was worth being caught in a downpour. This French production draws on evolving European circus traditions: physical theater, rapid changing of sets, exquisite timing, simple props, gymnastics, dance, the element of surprise, all coming together in this work born of psychological understanding combined with intelligence. No words, occasional music.

And all performed by one actress+one dancer+one gymnast, with an occasional supporting cast of several men dressed in gray and probably an equal number of technical helpers backstage.

Murmurs starts with the actress, surrounded by boxes, putting things in, taking them out in a haphazard way. Then comes the scene with the monster (made of greatly enlarged gauzy scraps from one of the boxes?). From then on, we see the humans backed by flimsy sets that have a reality naturalistic ones would not convey.

Better prepared than I was

Scary, funny, engrossing. As an articulate friend of mine was reduced to saying "Amazing!"

I agree. By the way, Victoria Thierry is Charlie Chaplin's daughter.

Cervantino Day 11: Niyaz at Valenciana

In the middle of the day, Iranian-born Niyaz, had her audience tapping their feet and swaying by the end of her concert performed in front of the golden altarpiece of the Valenciana Church. Accompanied by her husband and a tabla player, she moved with small but expressive movements as she sang Kurdish, Afghan and Iranian folk songs, as well as three songs composed by her husband.

Niyaz and the tabla player/FIC41 photos by Christa Cowrie

And her husband-composer-musician

The concert the three presented was very much in the spirit of this year's Festival theme, The Art of Liberty. Partway through, the singer, who has lived in Los Angeles since she was fifteen, gave an impassioned talk in English to her audience about the difficult situation the world is facing.

Many stayed for the charla afterward. All in all, a festival highlight for most of us who were there.

Cervantino Day 10: Musical Doubleheader - Endellion String Quartet at the Minas, Ravel & Stravinsky at the Juarez

FIC41 photo by Claudia Reyes

I wouldn't ordinarily go first to a chamber music concert and then later that evening to another featuring Mexico's National Symphony but that's the way the Cervantino plays out sometimes. Or maybe I just don't like making decisions.

I'm glad I did go to both. Britain's Endellion Quartet started with Haydn's beautiful Quartet #42, went on to the quartet Benjamin Britten composed during World War II when he was thirty-something and finished with Schubert's Death and the Maiden quartet. To think that Schubert left us so many beloved pieces before he died at age 31. If ever there was an unfinished life, it was Schubert's. The Britten didn't go down well with a Prepa student and a mathematician I talked with, but I liked it, maybe because I knew of its background.

Pleased conductor surrounded by musicians after Stravinsky's strenuous work

At the Juarez, I thought the big event would be Stravinksy's Rite of Spring, played to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the work's first performance, but hearing pianist Pascal Roge (accented on the last syllable) play the second movement of the Ravel Concerto in G was a new and indelible experience for me; so was the middle movement of the Ravel Sonatina Roge played as an encore for the enthusiastic audience. Then--what a dramatic end to the evening-- hearing the National Symphony perform the Rite of Spring in perfect synch under Juan Carlos Prieto. He and the musicians were mopping their brows after they finished. Although the string players show in this FIC$! photo also by Claudia Reyes, Stravinksy's work depended more on percussion, brasses and woodwinds .  .

Day 8: Maria de Madeiros

After missing the FIC4! press van, I ended up taking three buses to reach the ex-Hacienda but arrived in time for most of Maria's concert. Clearly her audience, made up almost equally of young and young-in-spirit Mexicans and foreigners, enjoyed her singing. When I arrived she was singing in English, later in Portuguese, Spanish, and French. A well-paced concert by this attractive young singer who moved naturally around the stage in her black and white print dress and very high white ankle-strap heels, the guitarist and battery player meanwhile playing with exuberance.

                                     My favorite song and maybe theirs, the quiet one "Just a Shadow."

Cervantino Day 3: rehearsing Moussorgsky;crafts at Casa de Artesanias; preparing to dance

Black weddinng won a prize for cartoneria

For me, a winner, but not officially

Dancers waiting their turn at the Casa de Puebla

About to look her best

Day 6: Reporters Hard at work, inside and on the street

At work in the press room, Casa de Artesanias

When I walked past Cantadores Park, I saw the new bust of writer Jorge Ibarguengoitia anong the illustrious citizens of Guanajuato.  A  new issue of Letras Librees featuring featuring this irrepressible
Guanajuatense and including an unpublished work about his stay in Iowa was presented in the Museo Dieguino.

Listening to Ute Lemper answer his probing question

Puebla TV on the lookout for news