The Teatro Leal presents Miguel Huertas-Camacho’s production, inspired by the novel by Benito Pérez Galdós.
The Teatro Leal in La Laguna is set to feature the chamber opera Tristana, composed by Miguel Huertas-Camacho, next Saturday (September 27). Co-produced by Auditorio de Tenerife and the Community of Madrid, the performance begins at 7.30 p.m. and will bring to a close the finale for the second edition of Ópera en minúscula.
The opera explores themes of freedom, desire, and the body as a battlefield. Bauti Carmen is the musical director, Ricardo Campelo is the stage director, Rhina is responsible for costumes, and Luiggi Falcone handles lighting.
This version of Tristana offers a radically updated interpretation of Benito Pérez Galdós’ novel, exploring the symbolic power of the female body and the right to emancipation. Based on the screenplay of Luis Buñuel and Julio Alejandro and with a libretto written by Jorge Volpi, this adaptation is set in the Chamberí neighbourhood of 21st-century Madrid, where the echoes of a patriarchal and bourgeois Spain are still heard in modern corridors, cell phones and moments of silence in which violence hangs in the air.
The original score, composed by Miguel Huertas-Camacho, is interpreted on piano (Miguel Huertas-Camacho), cello (Irene Celestino) and percussion (Juanjo Guillem), with vocals provided by a soprano (Ruth González), a tenor (César Arrieta), a baritone (Enrique Sánchez-Ramos) and an actress (Luisa Torregrosa). Onstage, the characters- Juan López Garrido, Tristana, Horacio, and Saturna -make their way through an intimate, political, and emotional landscape that brings together love, power, dependence, and the need to break away from everything.
The work is staged around a large LED display and live video through which gestures are amplified, intimacy is decomposed and essential, and symbolic details are revealed: controlling hands, a shifting gaze, and a broken voice. Rather than serving as mere decoration, these resources are an essential part of the work’s language and provide spectators with cinematically and emotionally crucial moments.
However, the real rupture occurs at the end of the story. Whereas the novel ends with Tristana’s mutilation, in this version, she is the one who decides to leave. Rather than submission and defeat, this version’s contemporary, lucid and contradictory Tristana chooses a path that may lead to freedom. Yet it may entail pain and may require singing with a different voice.
Acclaimed Mexican novelist Jorge Volpi is the author of the libretto of Tristana, an adaptation of the chamber opera of one of the best-known novels of Benito Pérez Galdós. This year marks the 125th anniversary of the birth of Luis Buñuel, who directed a film based on the original novel in 1970. Volpi’s chamber opera sets the story in the Chamberí neighbourhood of 21st-century Madrid, where the main characters live: a tyrannical opera teacher, his student Tristana, the insipid tenor Horacio, and Saturna, the housekeeper and procuress appearing in the novel and the Buñuel film who, in this adaptation, is transformed into the narrator of the story.
The Ópera de Tenerife is an initiative organised by the Island Council through the Auditorio de Tenerife with the collaboration of the ICDC (Regional Institute of Cultural Development) and the INAEM (Spanish National Institute of Performing Arts and Music). In addition, the second edition of Ópera en minúscula benefits from the partnership of the City Council of La Laguna.