/ARTS WEEKLY/COLOMBIA: Flamenco-Symphonic Premiere a Flop

By Constanza Vieira Reprint | | Print |

Constanza Vieira

BOGOTA, Apr 7 2004 (IPS) - The international premiere of a ”symphonic flamenco” concert on the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, billed as the feature attraction of the ninth Ibero-American Theatre Festival in the Colombian capital, ended up a flop due to technical problems and discrepancies between the Spanish and Colombian composers and musicians.

‘La Pasión según San Mateo’ (The Passion According to St. Matthew), the symphonic work by renowned Spanish composer Javier López, better known as ‘El Limón’, was written especially for the voice of Spanish flamenco star Diego ‘El Cigala’.

Also performing in the Apr. 2 debut of the novel fusion of flamenco and symphonic orchestra music were guitarist Niño Josele, percussionist Israel Suárez (‘Piraña’), and cantaoras (female flamenco singers) Montse Cortés and Genara from Spain, who were accompanied by the Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra and the Andean Youth Choir of Colombia.

The Apr. 2 concert in the Bogota Cathedral was for special guests only, including former presidents and government ministers, while the Apr. 3 performance in the Plaza de Bolivar was open to the public, and drew around 20,000 people.

The Spanish musicians will now head to the cities of Cordoba, Seville and Granada in southern Spain, and to the eastern Israeli city of Masada in October, where they will perform before ”an audience of Jews and Palestinians,” said El Cigala.

But the show got off to a less than spectacular start. ”The two concerts were a disaster from beginning to end,” Mauricio Lozano, a composer of classical as well as Andean music, and the director of the Cundinamarca chamber choir, told IPS.

During the second, open-air concert, a diesel-run generator roared on one side of the plaza, and the choir and orchestra could hardly be heard. El Cigala had to repeatedly ask the sound technicians to adjust the microphones so the public could hear the flamenco guitar.

But tension had already cropped up in the rehearsals, between El Limón, the musical director and composer, and Germán Céspedes, the director of the Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra.

To that was added, in both concerts, the terrible amplification, which was the responsibility of the Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mariana Gyalui, manager of Cigala Producciones, accused Céspedes and his orchestra of ”sabotaging” the concert. ”This was the main feature of the festival, and you couldn’t hear it. It was a very regrettable incident,” she complained.

On Apr. 2, in the impressive post-colonial Bogota Cathedral which is known for its poor acoustics, fragments totalling around 15 minutes of the 70-minute concert in three movements were simply left out.

And on Apr. 3, in the concert under the full moon, the entire last movement was left off, due to the awful sound system.

Neither the special guests in the cathedral nor the audience in the plaza were able to adequately appreciate the performance of the top-quality artists.

One of the sources of the tension in the run-up to the performances was the musical score sent from Spain, which according to the Philharmonic musicians ”only contained the notes,” without the rest of the information necessary for a ”professional” rendering.

But according to Gyalui, the score had been sent three months ahead of time, and ”the telephone conversations we had gave us the impression that everything was ok, that they were rehearsing.”

However, ”when we arrived in Bogota it turned out that they had not even looked at the score, and the orchestra practically had no idea of what it had to do in the concert.

”We cut the performance short because we saw they weren’t up to the task,” said the manager.

”I don’t want to discredit the work of the Philharmonic Orchestra. What I criticise is the fact that they deliberately failed to hire the necessary sound system and that they did not look at the score earlier,” she argued.

A source with the Ibero-American Theatre Festival’s board of directors, who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity, said the Philharmonic Orchestra offered to take charge of the sound system as a way of supporting the Festival. But, she added, ”what they said they would install was never actually set up.”

”It was the sound that failed, not the Philharmonic. The Orchestra did its best,” the Festival director, Fanny Mikey, remarked to IPS. The problem was that ”we entrusted the task to other people,” she added.

According to Gyalui, ”the day of the first dress rehearsal (with the Spanish artists), the director of the orchestra asked if there were tubas in the score, which is simply unacceptable.”

But Aníbal Dos Santos, who plays first viola in the Philharmonic Orchestra, denied that allegation, which he said was ”irresponsible.” He said, ”We treat any material we have in front of us with the same respect.”

For his part, Lozano said ”There were problems in the rehearsals. The composer wanted to direct the concert, but he is not an orchestra director, and he had to pass the baton to the musical director of the Philharmonic (Céspedes).”

”It is very commendable that El Limón had this idea, but from there to directing an orchestra is a long stretch,” said Dos Santos.

In his statements to the press since the disastrous performances of ‘La Pasión según San Mateo’, the viola player has referred somewhat scornfully to El Limón as ”an arranger.”

”We have another standard with regards to what being an artistic director means,” he said.

But Gyalui said El Limón ”is not an arranger. He is a composer, and has had a career as an orchestra director.”

Lozano noted that ”This was a difficult undertaking, because it involved bringing together two different worlds: that of the popular autodidact musician with that of the academy musician, and an experienced orchestra director is needed to make the link between those two universes.”

The Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra is one of the most famous in Latin America. According to international soloists like Uruguayan violinist Jorge Risi, a guest participant in the Orchestra’s leading concerts in 2002, it is the best in South America.

At any rate, ”it is hard to know if the work was interpreted faithfully,” said Lozano. ”It is impossible to form an opinion. There must be great frustration on both sides.

”Everyone in the orchestra is a professional, and there must be a great sense of sadness because the performance didn’t turn out, just as I imagine the flamenco musicians are also unhappy,” he added.

El Limón and El Cigala say they undertook the experiment inspired by the fact that the Jewish, Christian and Muslim cultures converge in the Bible and flamenco music.

”We have mixed three cultures, three musical traditions, three rhythms, three harmonies,” the composer told reporters before the concerts, while El Cigala said he was deeply religious.

The cantaor and the flamenco musicians who accompanied him have emerged from the trouble unscathed.

”We are protesting precisely because we adore El Cigala. This is disrespectful of him, his art and the audience,” jurist and professor Ricardo Sánchez, who led a protest against the poor amplification in the Plaza de Bolivar, told IPS.

Dos Santos did not explain why the diesel-run generator was used, and he blamed the poor sound in the plaza on the fact that the Spanish musicians ”changed the layout of the orchestra at 5:00 in the afternoon,” just two hours before the concert, which he said made it ”impossible” to achieve adequate amplification.

Until the unique flamenco-symphonic concert is put on again in Spain, it will be impossible to assess how much the poor acoustics and sound system had to do with the performances that prompted Colombian critic Ignacio Ramírez to write that ”the flamenco-philharmonic-choral hybrid does not shine like a single flame, but as virtually independent glows trying to merge.”

The biannual Ibero-American Theatre Festival, held in the two weeks before Easter when troupes flock to Bogota’s theatres and parks from all over the world, was founded 16 years ago by Fanny Mikey, a Colombian-Argentine national.

This year’s Festival is offering more than 500 shows to an expected total of at least 2.5 million people.