Opera no 177
Villa-Lobos: Magdalena
Soloists
Magdalena Ensemble
Evans Haile
The Villa Lobus piece I listened to in last year’s project https://andrew365newpieces.blogspot.com/search/label/Villa-Lobos didn’t make much of an impression. I was hoping for vivid South American rhythms but was disappointed as to how bland it all was. But this made up for it. It it something between a light opera and a broadway musical - indeed it was performed on Broadway but without much success and was then almost forgotten. A strike meant that no original cast recording was made.
That’s a pity because the work comes up as fresh as a daisy in this revival. It has all of the latin American flavour one would hope for as well as some great tunes and some lovely choral writing. The most natural point of comparison is probably with Bernstein, though this pieces predates West Side Story by almost a decade. I listened to this during a long wait for a flight home - it made the time pass very quickly!
