Lorca, Child of the Moon/Lorca, Hijo de la luna (1984-87)  [100’]

An opera in three acts in piano-vocal score, in Spanish or English, commissioned and premiered by the Bilingual Foundation of the Arts ‘Teatro’ in workshop form in Los Angeles.  May be performed as a chamber opera with piano and guitar accompaniment.  The full orchestral score remains incomplete as of this time.

Unpublished.  Please direct all inquiries to the composer.  Demo tape available.  P.O. Box 117, 23705 Vanowen Street, West Hills, CA 91307

Program notes and performance history:

 Lorca, hijo de la luna (aka Lorca, Child of the Moon) is a full-length opera in piano-vocal score, Spanish book by Margarita Galban, English translations by Michael Dewell and Carmen Zapata.  Though portions of it have been arranged for various concert media and a few sections scored, it has never been fully orchestrated.  It was commissioned by the Los Angeles based Bilingual Foundation of the Arts with matching funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts.  Under the auspices of the BFA, with music directorship provided by the composer, it was mounted twice in workshop productions with runs of about seven performances each, in 1985 and 1987.

 The piece is unique in several ways.  First, it intermingles opera singers with flamenco singers.  Second, it is a dance-drama.  Third, it is a non-narrative work, that relies for its formal cohesion upon a "dramatic theme and variations" of sorts, in addition to musical ritornellos, leitmotifs, and the like.  Fourth, it is  a hybrid of sorts of opera, musical theater, song cycle, and Flamenco tablao.  I know of no other piece quite like it.  Though well served in an intimate theater – it was premiered in a ninety-nine seat equity-waiver space -  it was intended to be produced in a standard opera house.

 Though in three acts, its total running time does not exceed two hours of music.  (The authors, realizing how intense it would be to stitch together some of the most potent poems and dramatic scenes of Federico García Lorca, decided to err on the short side!)  It is, as those who witnessed it would attest, a very intense piece.

 As of this writing, no attempts are being made to mount a professional premiere production.