Ainadamar

Federico García Lorca’s life and untimely death are the stuff of legend. Kelly Apter caught up with Deborah Colker, director-choreographer of the UK premiere of Ainadamar, an opera aiming to capture the essence of this Spanish literary hero’s complex story

'The opera world is trying to kidnap me,’ says Deborah Colker, with a broad smile and bright eyes. ‘They said, “enough of this dance stuff, we need someone for opera”!’ If she has been abducted, Colker is clearly a willing victim. A formidable force in dance and theatre for over 30 years, as well as sojourns into circus and ceremony (Cirque du Soleil and the Olympics have known her creative hand), the Brazilian is now branching out into new terrain for Scottish Opera. Working as directorchoreographer, Colker will deliver the UK premiere of Ainadamar, Osvaldo Golijov’s Grammy Award-winner.

A passionate retelling of the life (and death) of Spanish poet, playwright and activist Federico García Lorca, the opera is told through the memories and imagination of his muse, actress Margarita Xirgu. Already a huge fan of both Golijov and Lorca, Colker was easily kidnapped for the job. ‘Lorca is someone born in the 19th century, killed in the 20th century, and here we are in the 21st century still talking about him, and he only lived until he was 38,’ she says. ‘The power of his poetry, of his life, his intelligence, his intuition, his feelings, his artistry, the things he represents, his fight for human rights; they’re all part of the reason I decided to work on this opera.’

A coming together of contemporary opera and traditional flamenco song and dance, Ainadamar translates from Arabic as ‘The Fountain Of Tears’. Written by Argentinean Golijov and American playwright David Henry Hwang, the story moves back and forth in time as Xirgu relates Lorca’s story to her young student, Nuria. But as far as Colker is concerned, capturing the ambience is more important than delivering a date-perfect chronology.

‘I love Golijov,’ says Colker, ‘so I talked to him about this and said, “listen, I’m not going to be precise with all these flashbacks, memories and history”, saying this is real, this is not real etc. And Golijov said, “perfect! The audience doesn’t need to know this happened last week or that happened on that night”. No, this is about creating a passionate Spanish atmosphere.’ Talking with Golijov also settled another concern in Colker’s head: the fact that in the opera, Lorca is portrayed by a woman. ‘I asked Golijov, did you decide to make Lorca a woman because he was gay? And he said no, it was because he wanted three female voices to make the last trio special.’

As a result, the main roles of Lorca, Xirgu and Nuria are played by a mezzo soprano and two sopranos, with Samantha Hankey taking on the role of Lorca. ‘I’ve been working with Samantha on how she needs to be a man, but a very shy, delicate and fragile one,’ explains Colker. ‘Lorca represents the resistance against fascism but he always used to say, “no, my focus is love”, and that’s our basis here. Lorca reminds me of David Bowie; he’s like Ziggy Stardust passing from the past to the future. He’s androgynous and wants to experience everything; for me, Lorca was that kind of rebel.’

Ainadamar, Theatre Royal, Glasgow, Wednesday 2, Saturday 5 November; Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, Tuesday 8, Thursday 10, Saturday 12 November.