Events at Caedmon Hall
Review: Teatro de Nieve in première of Sergio Camacho’s Three Word Poem About Loss
Caedmon Hall, Gateshead
9 June 2007
This was the latest offering from Sergio Camacho, a young Spaniard who, since his arrival four years ago, has been causing ripples on the Tyne with his many-sided hyperactivity. Between singing in at least three styles (flamenco, Hispanic folk and Latin), teaching, reading for a PhD at Newcastle University and completing a distance-learning second degree in Spain, this tireless character has been, unbeknownst to most on Tyneside, touring the world with his award-winning Spanish traditional music group, the winners of three consecutive annual prizes to the best originally written piece.
How much jouleage can a human being generate? For all along, in amongst everything else, Camacho has been doing the real work of his life: he has been composing music. And writing the lyrics for it. Lest this sound like he has been spending his leisurely hours desultorily penning the odd popsong, let me clarify: Sergio Camacho has been writing an opera, based on a storyline and libretto created by himself. And he has been preparing its first performance, for which he has created a music-theatre company, Teatro de Nieve, and rehearsing it and functioning as its musical director. I got to attend the première on 9 June, which was, and sorry if the story seems to get a bit implausible, only the second part of a two-nighter, something which had already been performed the previous night, but in a different form, in a folk-oriented incarnation involving yet another of Camacho’s creatures, a group named Luna de Mayo. Having only finite time to follow this vertiginous career, I missed the first and attended the second, the opera Three Word Poem About Loss.
As soon as the show started, the impression was one of taut, serious-minded concentration. No ordinary student effort here: Luis Ortega’s thoughtful stage direction elicited committed performances from each of the actor-singers, providing an atmosphere of tense introspection throughout. The characters are The Father, embodied in his corporal dimension by dancer Yuvel Soria and in his spiritual persona by baritone Simone Marchesini; the mother, represented as a body by dancer Rosa Stourac McCreedy and as a soul by soprano Teresa Magnowska, and the son, enacted as an adult by Mariano Otheguy and as an infant by Jacob Robson. Presiding over this trinity is The Moon, in the form of countertenor Luis Ortega providing a hauntingly characterised presence. To one side of the minimalist stage was the small orchestra, conducted by guess who. The whole outfit looked right, in size and nature, for the Caedmon Hall auditorium.
The production rode with surprising ease astride the language divide, thanks to the printed programme, providing every word of the sung text with English translations, thanks also to the compellingly expressive delivery by everyone on stage, and thanks to the distinctive structure where the same story is told twice, from two different perspectives.
The writing is tuneful and harmonically simple, betraying the music’s origins in the vernacular. Act 2 offers considerably more originality and psychological subtlety than the first, as if representing a later stage in its young composer’s development. The eight-piece orchestra was used with practicality and common sense, recurrently displaying a knack for orchestral colour. The vocal lines flow with lyrical ease, again bearing proof of Camacho’s expertise in Latin singing styles. After a few of such setpieces, I began to hope for the mould to break and for the music to follow the drama with a bit more suppleness and audacity. In other words, I wished there was more of an opera and less of a songspiel. The weight of the story certainly would warrant the operatic treatment it did not get.
From the performers, I admired the commitment and professionalism in Ortega’s singing and direction, the vocal power of Magnowska, the unfailing intonation of Otheguy’s singing – even in the highest falsetto passages -, the well-rounded baritone delivery of Marchesini and the depth of expression of the dancers Soria and Stourac McCreedy. Soria, in particular, demonstrated an impressive range of psychological exploration, reaching moments of intensity that had his audience spellbound. The orchestra was patchy, with some of the links so weak that the strain was audible.
But the strongest impression I came out with was that of a creative talent getting ready to produce its best creative results. Camacho has done an impressive job, especially by surrounding himself with a committed team of serious-minded performers and support personnel. If he can focus more of his impressive energies on this project there is no telling how far he can go.
Agustín Fernández