Opera for solo singers and instrumental ensemble by Spanish composer José María Sánchez-Verdú, based on Carlos Fuentes’ story Aura. The author portrays a gloomy and psychologically dense atmosphere inside a strange house, in its disturbing rooms and corridors. The interior is covered in darkness. The three characters are pushed toward an ending that is also a beginning, or perhaps an eternal return. A very old lady (Consuelo) and her niece (Aura) spend some days with young Felipe Montero, who must fulfil the task of putting together the memoirs left by the lady’s deceased husband (General Llorente). Felipe falls in love with Aura while he witnesses her relationship with Consuelo. The events and time run in concentric circles, creating an accelerating spiral toward the end of the story. In fact, young and beautiful Aura is ultimately the same old Mrs. Consuelo. Felipe will gradually become aware of this fact. By the story’s conclusion it is also perceived, not without horror, that the same Felipe was / is and will always be the same general Llorente. This is the resulting plot of a system based on mirrors, echoes, shadows and a very poetic and terrifying game around the idea of aura, close to Walter Benjamin’s concept. What is truth, what is mere reflection? What is the original, and which is the copy? Psychological density, a lonely, dark atmosphere around the tension between the characters, increasingly clasping blind passion and doubt, all these are the elements of this depiction of a fantastic and funereal eroticism which flows imperceptibly into horror. Meanwhile, the staging recreates the three opprobrious, overloaded and asphyxiating areas where the characters dwell in the play, assigning each a certain particularity in terms of color and object content. In these spaces, everything is veiled but at the same time revealed by the ominous presence of Alice in Wonderland’s Rabbit that, like a skilful chess player, organizes the course of events to an unavoidable point where the trail to the burrow seems to have no way out.

Performers
EUGENIA FUENTE, soprano
VIRGINIA CORREA DUPUY, mezzosoprano
ANDREAS FISCHER, bass
ESTEBAN MANZANO, voice performance
JAVIER LEZCANO, voice performance
HORACIO MARASSI, actor

Ensemble
SEBASTIÁN TELLADO, flute
ANTJE HENSEL, flute
RICHARD ALONSO DÍAZ, tuba
ELÍAS GUREVICH, violin I
GRACE MEDINA, violin II
MARIANO MALAMUD, viola
MARTÍN DEVOTO, cello
CARLOS VEGA, couterbass
IÑAKI ALBERDI, accordeon I
ÍÑIGO AIZPIOLEA, accordeon II
JOACHIM HAAS, Auraphon

Libretto
JOSÉ MARÍA SÁNCHEZ VERDÚ
Production Manager
LUCIANA MILIONE
Musical Trainer
DIEGO RUIZ
Video Editor
MARCELO MARTÍNEZ
Assistant Director
JULIETA POTENZE
Costume Design
MIRTA LIÑEIRO
Lighting Design
ALEJANDRO LE ROUX
Set Design
NORBERTO LAINO
Composer and Musical Director
JOSÉ MARÍA SÁNCHEZ VERDÚ
Régie
EMILIO GARCÍA WEHBI


Sala Casacuberta, Teatro General San Martín, 2010.

Fotos Ernesto Donegana