By Coral Gables Gazette staff
Opera and zarzuela arias drawn from more than a dozen works will become the score for a new love story this weekend at Sanctuary of the Arts.
Fine Arts of Miami will present Carrousel of Hearts on Saturday and Sunday, July 25 and 26, setting the production at a Belle Époque village fair where several couples navigate jealousy, betrayal, reconciliation and romantic uncertainty beneath the carnival lights.
Rather than staging excerpts as separate concert selections, the company has taken familiar pieces out of their original dramatic settings and arranged them into a continuous theatrical narrative. Short passages of spoken dialogue in Spanish connect the musical numbers, whose original lyrics remain unchanged.
The result, according to the company, is intended to function as a lyrical musical or a contemporary miniature zarzuela: a newly created story assembled from existing classical repertoire.
A carnival of entangled romances
The production centers on a group of couples whose relationships intersect at the fair. Its story moves through love found and lost, concealed feelings, infidelity and a romance given another chance.
Soprano Beatriz Marie Menéndez, the production’s artistic director, developed the narrative by closely translating and examining the lyrics of each aria under consideration. The aim was to identify the emotional meaning of each piece and determine how it might serve a character and plot different from the one for which it was written.
That approach distinguishes Carrousel of Hearts from a conventional program of opera scenes, in which each selection usually remains attached to its original characters and dramatic circumstances.
Here, the music of Mozart, Verdi, Bizet, Donizetti and others is used to tell an entirely different story.
Menéndez also performs as one of two sisters at the center of the plot. Her character strays from her boyfriend and must confront the consequences, singing selections from Mozart’s Così fan tutte and a duet from La revoltosa.
The cast also includes baritones Nelson Martínez and Gabriel La Salette Menéndez; mezzo-sopranos Paola Elorza and Stephanie Paige Newman; soprano Roxana Triana; and tenor Aurelio Hernández.
They will be accompanied by a Fine Arts of Miami string quintet and pianist Marcela Martínez.
Elorza portrays a young woman struggling to understand feelings that leave her caught between insecurity and tenderness. Gabriel La Salette Menéndez plays a jealous husband whose guarded manner gradually gives way to his romantic attachment.
Opera and zarzuela in the same story
The score draws from operas including Verdi’s Rigoletto and La traviata; Bizet’s Carmen; Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte; and Donizetti’s Don Pasquale and L’elisir d’amore.
The program also incorporates music from the Spanish operatic tradition, including Doña Francisquita, La tabernera del puerto, El dúo de la Africana, La verbena de la Paloma and La revoltosa.
A romantic interlude comes from Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona’s “Damisela encantadora.”
Among the better-known selections are “La donna è mobile,” the tenor aria from Rigoletto, and “No puede ser,” the romanza from La tabernera del puerto.
The pairing of opera and zarzuela is central to Fine Arts of Miami’s effort to introduce audiences to both traditions, particularly zarzuela, the Spanish-language form that combines operatic singing with spoken dialogue and elements of popular theater.
Unamplified voices
All of the singing will be performed without microphones.
The decision preserves the traditional acoustic relationship between classical singers and their audience but places greater demands on the performers, who must project over the instrumental ensemble while maintaining clarity, phrasing and dramatic expression.
Menéndez has described the unamplified approach as requiring singers to depend on breath, technique and physical presence rather than sound equipment to carry the emotional character of the music.
The performance will run approximately two hours.
A developing theatrical format
The production is a departure from Fine Arts of Miami’s previous vocal concerts, which were organized around individual performances rather than a single plot.
Beatriz C. Menéndez, the organization’s chief financial officer and acting executive director, said the company intends to continue developing the narrative format.
Its next planned production, Opera in the Dark: The Ghost Light Hour, is scheduled for October at the Lehman Theatre at Miami-Dade College. The company expects that production to expand the concept with dancers, a chorus and more extensive visual staging.
Fine Arts of Miami is presenting Carrousel of Hearts in partnership with Sanctuary of the Arts, the Coral Gables performing-arts organization based on the former First Church of Christ, Scientist campus on Andalusia Avenue.
Since opening there in 2022, Sanctuary of the Arts has used the property for concerts, dance, theater, instruction and performances by resident and visiting organizations.
If you go…
Carrousel of Hearts
Saturday, July 25, at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, July 26, at 3 p.m.
Sanctuary of the Arts
410 Andalusia Avenue, Coral Gables
Running time: Approximately 120 minutes
Tickets: $31 and $61
Information and tickets: Fine Arts of Miami and Sanctuary of the Arts websites
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