In the latest issue of TONY -- the one with President Eisenhower's placid mug on the cover -- you'll find a pithy little one-page feature by yours truly about the Osvaldo Golijov festival that opens in Lincoln Center on Sunday, January 22. The piece in question isn't deep and probing, nor was it meant to be. On the contrary, it's simply a pithy little list of talking points, run up next to a snazzy photo. The idea was to coax the uninitiated to investigate Lincoln Center's altogether admirable series -- and in the process make the acquaintance of a bold yet eminently approachable modern composer. The piece can be found right here.
Unfortunately -- you could sense that coming, couldn't you? -- a bit of that article ended up on the cutting-room floor. A rather important bit, in my opinion…and that's why I'm going to provide that bit, right here. The fifth and final "talking point" in the article mentions that, in addition to the already mentioned La Pasión según San Marcos and Ainadamar, the festival would reprise Ayre:
…a vibrant collision of Jewish and Arabic folk music and poetry with contemporary electronica. Some of the vocal styles are closer to alternative rock than opera. "In the 19th century, operatic voices were able to convey the entire range of human emotion and experience," Golijov says.
Unfortunately, that's where the article ends. If Golijov's quote seems like something of a non sequitur given what preceded it, there's a reason. Here's how that paragraph originally concluded:
"I don't think that's the case today. There are so many other fields that have been explored through microphones and the popular voice that to take them out doesn't work for me."
Makes more sense now, doesn't it? That's the main reason I was so distraught to come upon this particular cut, which I discovered in the printed issue. Another reason is because, given the flap currently going on here and there about the use of amplification in opera houses and concert halls, this was a particularly pertinent point for Golijov to have made in public. Ainadamar does not use vocal amplication; Doctor Atomic, which Golijov esteems with a reverence ususally reserved for late Verdi, most certainly does. And it's very likely that so, too, will any future creation Golijov might envision for the lyric stage.
