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The crisis inspired American writer
Ann Patchett, whose best-selling 2001
novel
Bel Canto
centered on an American
opera diva who’d come to a fictional
South American capital to perform for
a visiting Japanese business mogul.
The transformative power of music
was a central theme. In her research
Patchett had listened to Renée Fleming’s
recordings; after publication, the two met
and became fast friends.
In 2010, Fleming toured Scandinavia
with Peruvian conductor Miguel Harth-
Bedoya, and asked him to suggest a
composer for a possible project. “Yes—
Jimmy López,” who’d hung around Lima
Philharmonic rehearsals as a teenager,
studied at Helsinki’s Sibelius Conservatory,
and was getting his Ph.D. in composition
at Berkeley. As Lyric’s creative consultant,
Fleming proposed curating an opera
based on
Bel Canto
. She and music director
Sir Andrew Davis considered dozens of
composers before choosing López, whose
instrumental music was captivating and
whose serendipitous connection to the
story was compelling.
They met the composer in April 2011.
López recalls, “They had all my scores and
CDs on the table, had gone to my YouTube
channel and website, and had specific
questions about my pieces.” Fleming and
Davis revealed Lyric’s plan to commission a
full-length opera, which Sir Andrew would
conduct, and the subject matter. “That’s
when I felt the stars were aligning,” López
says. “I had a very personal connection
with the material. Of course, the book and
the opera are fictional; we’re not trying
to narrate a historical event, but being
Peruvian, I felt a responsibility to make
some elements of the story more explicit
and bring some aspects of the real-life
events into the opera.”
Says Fleming, “Something I love
about this story is there’s this chaos, this
danger, death even—but ultimately all of
Ann’s books find the good in people. In
Bel
Canto
it’s music and singing that bring out
the best in everyone.”
The search for the right librettist led
to playwright Nilo Cruz, the first Latino
to win the Pulitzer Prize for drama
(
Anna in the Tropics
). His play,
Two Sisters
and a Piano
, dramatizes the effects of
extended house arrest, which convinced
López he was perfect for
Bel Canto
. “Being
Cuban-American, Nilo understands the
reality of South America. He maintained
all the psychological aspects of Ann’s
novel, but he’s also brought us closer to
the political realities of the events. Our
music and words were intertwined from
the beginning.” Notes Fleming, “Nilo’s
use of language is musical in itself. The
beauty of his prose has a magical-realism
quality that fits this part of the world.”
Says Cruz, “The novel is mainly narrative;
I had to go into the minds and hearts of
the characters to capture dialogue and
explore the subtext.”
In Cruz’s taut, poetic libretto,
terrorists storm a high-profile
international party in Lima. Trapped
together for 126 days, hostages and
captors form unlikely relationships. A
utopian community gradually flourishes
within the mansion walls. Opera diva
Roxane Coss embodies their hopes and
fears; the terrorists see her music as
both a threat and an asset. Roxane and
Hosokawa, a Japanese tycoon, fall in love,
as do his interpreter, Gen, and a terrorist,
Carmen. Their dreams shatter when the
army storms the mansion to liberate the
hostages, but their love lives on in the
form of music.
Lyric announced the
Bel Canto
commission in 2012. (Patchett graciously
called the libretto “much better than my
novel!”) López “tackled the main arias
first, which served as guideposts for the
rest of the piece.” As with architecture,
“you have to plan the whole structure. I
laid out a harmonic plan, the scales and
rhythms for each act. I didn’t assign a
melody to each character—no leitmotifs—
but each has a certain musical aura.”
López met with Davis in 2013,
“a privilege most opera composers
don’t enjoy. Sir Andrew understood
my intentions with the music; his
suggestions improved dramatic tensions,
orchestration, issues of balance, and
interactions of voice and orchestra.”
Subsequent working sessions “provided
me with feedback on what I’d written,
and also about what I was going to write,”
López says. “I’d ask Andrew, ‘How do you
hear the next scene?’ and he’d say, ‘It has
to be a chamber-music moment, just a few
instruments, very intimate.’”
Fleming recalls “talking about
tessitura, variety in the vocal writing,
and prosody—how to set language so
it’s understood. It’s not easy. And every
voice is different.” Says López, “It was
a privilege to have Renée guide me
5
“Of course the book and
the opera are f ict ional;
we’re not trying to narrate
a histor ical event, but
being Peruvian, I felt a
respons ibi l it y to make
some elements of the story
more explicit and bring
some aspects of the real-
life events into the opera.”
DANIELLE DE NIESE
DECCA/CHRISDUNLOP
FRENCHALBUM
LYRIC’S CREATIVE
CONSULTANT
RENÉE FLEMING