Ainadamar, which has a libretto by playwright David Henry Hwang, depicts the final days of poet and playwright Federico Garc‹a Lorca, as seen by actress Margarita Xirgu. Soprano Dawn Upshaw sings the lead role of Xirgu, reprising the role she created at Tanglewood in 2003 and sang at Santa Fe Opera last year; mezzo-soprano Kelley O'Connor is Garc‹a Lorca. Peter Sellars directs; Miguel Harth-Bedoya conducts. The opera, which is staged at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater, returns on January 24 and 26.
Upshaw, a frequent collaborator of Golijov's, also appears with the Kronos Quartet in a performance of Ayre at the Rose Theater on February 4. Based on 15th-century Spanish folk songs, the cycle makes use of texts and musical styles from the Christian, Jewish, and Arab traditions.
"Osvaldo has really expanded my vocal palette," Upshaw told Playbill last year. "He has brought out sounds I hadn't ever imagined coming out of my throat."
On February 8, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, with clarinetist Todd Palmer and cellist David Finckel, plays Yiddishbbuk and The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind at Alice Tully Hall. The program also includes Schubert's String Quintet in C major, a work that has influenced Golijov.
Finally, conductor Robert Spano leads the Atlanta Symphony, the Schola Cantorum de Caracas, and other musicians in La Pasi‹n Seg‹n San Marcos (The Passion According to St. Mark), the cross-cultural tour de force that thrust Golijov to prominence in 2000. Performances take place at the Rose Theater on February 20 and 21.
Other events include a series of performances in JALC's Allen Room of tango and klezmer music, which are part of Golijov's broad stylistic palette. A discussion of film music with Golijov and Gustavo Santaolalla at the Walter Reade Theatre closes the festival on February 22.
"I modulate between cultures," Golijov said. "I use cultures and identities, and musical symbols of those identities, the same way that other composers might use tonal areas, modulating between key signatures."
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