The Marriage of Figaro

NIGHTS AT THE OPERA

Free performance by ICES El Salinero  5th July

Approach from UK Opera Company

The Centre Island Of The Lanzarote Music Teachings (ICES) will close the current academic year with a performance of the complete opera, The Marriage Of Figaro, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It will take place on Friday, July 5th at the 7.00 pm in Teatro Victor Fernandez Gopar “Salinero” in Arrecife.

It’s an event unprecedented in Lanzarote, as this will be the first time we will see a complete performance of an opera that has been entirely produced on the island. Under the musical direction of renowned master, with an international reputation, Ignacio García Vidal, this ambitious project boasts a cast of soloists, choir and Orchestra, while responsible for stage direction will be the actress and choreographer Alicia Pérez Mántaras.

Classroom singing by a choir of graduate students, under the artistic direction of the Professor Alicia Garcia, will complete the cast that will narrate in song the misadventures of Figaro and Susanna. There will also be guest solo performances by Arántzazu Moscoso, Ainhoa Martin, Borja Molina and Jeroboam Tejera.

They will be accompanied by an excellent Orchestra created for the occasion, made up of professors and Alumni Centre students of the Conservatorio Superior de Canarias, and invited professional musicians of the Symphonic main formations across the Canary Islands.

ICES, is overseen by the Cabildo’s Department, led by Carmen Rosa Márquez, and continues, thanks to this project, in its line of creating proposals seeking excellence and bringing music to the entire population of the island

It is in part because of that remit that tickets to attend the opera, The Marriage Of Figaro, will be free. Interested persons can collect the invitations at the office of ICES in the Medullary Avenue, s/n Arrecife, from 1 to 5 July, from 9.00 am to 1.00 pm. With so many family and friends of the performers likely to want to attend this prestigious event there is likely to be a high demand, so perhaps an early visit to the office, say before 9.15 on the first morning, might be advisable.

I remember writing in an all across the arts article on these pages a few months ago that I felt a bit of a fraud writing under that strap liner of all across the arts, as there were obviously some art forms I had never yet witnessed with the primary one of those, perhaps, being Opera. Since then I have seen a major part of Carmen Burana delivered on El Reducto Arrecife as part of the 100 Years Lanzarote And Manrique Festival and have been invited to attend The Marriage Of Figaro.

Furthermore, though, by the merest coincidence, I received an exploratory letter last week from a major, well established Opera production company in the UK. They have a cast and production crew available to work in the summer of 2020 and would like to learn whether there is any requirement, here on Lanzarote, either of want or need, of a week’s opera workshop and performance (s) in which students and adults whop have taken part in the workshop events can be included in the performance chorus. With opera suddenly having a profile I had not noticed in my first three years on the island this seems an opportunity Lanzarote might like to take advantage of. If anyone reading this is interested in learning more and perhaps in taking part, please contact me on normanwarwick22@yahoo.com

There would be costings to work out, performance venues to find etc but the more individuals ands better yet, organisations with the arts and education services, showing an appetite for this,, the easier it will become to put the project together. The Opera Company concerned has already delivered more than 100 productions in the UK and is awaiting an expression of interest. They might have skills to share.