by the El Reportero’s news service
The play Una Venganza. Plácido Domingo above and Isabel Allende below.Under the baton of Placido Domingo, acclaimed Chilean writer Isabel Allende’s short story Una Venganza (An Act of Vengeance) emerges from the printed page as the opera Dulce Rosa, a production with a Latin heart and Greek tragedy in its soul that premieres Friday in Los Angeles.
Dulce Rosa is a further effort by the L.A. Opera, directed by Domingo, to bring lyric opera to a wider audience.
“We’re always looking to create new works,” the Spanish tenor told Efe.
Domingo got behind the adaptation of Una Venganza when the idea was proposed to him by composer Lee Holdridge and librettist Richard Sparks, to whom Allende gave the go-ahead years ago without really expecting anything to come of it, she told Efe.
“It finally emerged, to my surprise,” the author of The House of the Spirits said, adding that she often receives requests from artists to stage her stories but “only about 10 percent are used as proposed, the rest get lost somewhere along the way.”
Allende, who will attend Friday’s premiere, chose to remain on the sidelines of the project and leave the work “to people who know the field.”
Dulce Rosa relates the traumatic experience of young Rosa Orellano, played by Uruguayan soprano María Antunez, who, after a political uprising takes the life of her father, a powerful senator of a Latin American country, is raped by a guerrilla with whom she will later attempt to settle scores.
The opera is in English, though Domingo said he plans its translation into the language of Cervantes in order to export the production to Spanish-speaking countries.
“There are some contacts with the Miami Opera, and I believe with the Santiago Opera in Chile. I also want it to be a work that can be produced with young singers. I would love to take it to Valencia (Spain) and it will almost certainly go to Washington,” the tenor said.
JLo Performed, but Who Won ‘American Idol’ 2013?
On Thursday night’s finale of the 12th season of Fox’s American Idol, former judge Jennifer López took the stage to perform her new single Live It Up with rapper Pitbull.
López was among a number of celebrity performers, including a few former Idol contestants to appear on the show. Jennifer Hudson, Aretha Franklin, Travis Barker (Blink-182), Emeli Sande, Adam Lambert, Jessie J, Psy, Frankie Valli, and The Band Perry performed. Judges Randy Jackson, Mariah Carey, and Keith Urban even performed – Jackson playing bass guitar.
Bill Clinton meets with Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombian President
Visiting U.S. former President Bill Clinton met in Cartagena with Colombian head of state Juan Manuel Santos and literary icon Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and on Thursday joined Bogota Mayor Gustavo Petro for a ride around that Caribbean city in an electric taxi.
Petro uploaded a photo to his Twitter account Thursday that shows him driving one of the vehicles of their entourage and Clinton next to him in the passenger seat.
The Clinton Foundation promotes environmentally sustainable policies and has supported the Bogotá mayor’s office in its efforts to build up a fleet of electric public transport vehicles and create a large cities’ fund to finance climate change adaptation efforts.
On Tuesday night, at the beginning of his stay in Cartagena, Clinton attended a dinner hosted by Santos.
According to the daily El Tiempo, Santos and Clinton spoke during the meal about the Colombian government’s ongoing peace talks in Cuba with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the Andean nation’s largest guerrilla insurgency.
Clinton congratulated Santos on that initiative.
On Wednesday, Clinton walked around Cartagena’s historic downtown and visited 86-year-old García Márquez, recipient of the 1982 Nobel Prize in literature, and his wife, Mercedes Barcha, at their home.
Clinton said afterward that the conversation centered on family and that Garcia Marquez recalled that he had met the former president’s daughter, Chelsea, 20 years ago and the two had had a long chat about his books.
The ex-head of state said the Colombian author was surprised then that a person so young (Chelsea was a teenager at the time) had read so much and was familiar with his work.
Clinton recalled that, a month after their literary discussion, Garcia Marquez sent his daughter all of his works that had been translated into English.
