Latin America’s Earliest Opera Enjoys a Boomlet

The music of New Spain, of colonial Latin America, has been the hottest area of musicological research and recovery for the past decade. As the earliest extant opera composed in Latin America--Lima, Peru, in 1701--this setting of the Venus and Adonis myth, by playwright Pedro Calderon de la Barca, has long been a textbook touchstone. On the wings of the Latin American boom, it has left academic life for the stage. This recording, the third “Purpura” released in the last two years, documents a 1999 co-production of the Grand Theater in Geneva and the Zarzuela Theater in Madrid.

Although it has no recitative, the opera is sung throughout, in the verse-and-chorus pattern typical of much Spanish theater and dramatic music. Torrejon grows the piece naturally, from coy and courtly beginnings to fiery revelations of passion and its tragic aftermath. Garrido’s production captures this nicely, introducing an anonymous “Xacara” dance as a sort of entr’acte midway through the eight scenes. From there the performance becomes increasingly earthy as guitars take over the orchestra and the underlying dance rhythms are emphasized. The singing, solo and ensemble, is clear and fluent, and the orchestral work colorful and propulsive. Beware the error-filled booklet.

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