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Heitor Villa-Lobos: The Brazilian Bach Part 5
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By Joe Lopes
Here is the fifth and final part of Joe‘s article about the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos. To read the previous parts click the relevant links at the end of the article.
Yerma & the Flirtation with Hollywood
Villa-Lobos' only other stabs at the theatrical genre were the opera Yerma (1955-56), written to a Spanish text and based on the 1934 play by dramatist-poet Federico García Lorca; and his final subject for the stage, the children's fairy-tale A Menina das Nuvens ("The Girl from the Clouds," 1957-58), given a fair number of presentations in Rio and São Paulo's Municipal Theaters.
As his most ambitious and innovative vocal work yet, Yerma was an atypical oeuvre in the canon of the confirmed Brazilian nationalist. But if the operatic idiom was still an unfamiliar dialect to him, certainly the play's tightly-knit structure (three acts with two scenes each) and dramatic plot devices (the clash of earthly frustrations with magical and supernatural elements) stirred Villa-Lobos to new heights of lyricism.
The story bore striking similarities to German composer Richard Strauss' Die Frau ohne Schatten ("The Woman Without a Shadow," 1919) in its psychological depiction of the eternal feminine and the archetypal yearning for motherhood, albeit transplanted to rural Spain.
Unfortunately, Yerma never saw the light of day during the composer's lifetime, and, as a result, went unperformed until New Mexico's Santa Fe Opera finally mounted a production of it in August 1971, a full twelve years after his demise. It did not catch on with audiences or with other opera houses, and has languished in undeserved obscurity for the better part of half a century.
The same could be said for his joyous Menina das Nuvens, although this work's performance history has been less checkered than that of its immediate predecessor.
Moreover, one of its tuneful glories - a lovely third-act ode for soprano - was done in the form of an "invocation to the moon"; in style and substance, it brought to mind an earlier set-piece from the late nineteenth-century romantic era, the opera Rusalka, written by Czech nationalist Antonín Dvorák.
An amusing footnote to Villa-Lobos' long musical career had focused on his Hollywood commission to write a score for the 1959 MGM film adaptation of the old W. H. Hudson potboiler Green Mansions.
Directed by actor Mel Ferrer, the movie starred his talented wife, the delicate but miscast Audrey Hepburn, as Rima, the "bird-girl" of the Amazon, and the boyish Anthony Perkins, in his pre-Psycho period, as the blasé love-interest.
With typical Hollywood motion-picture logic, the film producers informed the master musician of their intention not to have him orchestrate his work - actually, a standard studio practice at the time, but which totally infuriated the usually unruffled Brazilian. MGM further compounded the offense by releasing the finished product with most of the music credited to composer Bronislau Kaper, a more-established movie veteran, who had previously scored the delightful Leslie Caron vehicle Lili (1953), along with several other gems for the silver screen.
Nevertheless, Villa-Lobos took advantage of filmdom's callous disregard for his capabilities and refashioned the completed score into a large-scale symphonic tone poem for soprano, male chorus and expanded orchestra, renaming it A Floresta do Amazonas, or "Forest of the Amazon" - a title that recalled, and paid belated tribute to, his earlier wanderings into the rainforest region.
The richly exotic treatment of this colorful orchestral epic was everything one could expect from so fiercely independent and astute a musical artist as Villa; it was, simply put, a classic case of Hollywood's loss and the concert hall's gain.
The work was committed to posterity in 1959 by United Artists Records, with the difficult soprano part taken by the legendary Bidu Sayão, who came out of her early retirement as a special favor to the conductor of the recording sessions: her most esteemed friend and admirer, the gravely-ill composer.
Postlude: The Villa-Lobos Legacy
Heitor Villa-Lobos eventually succumbed to the cancer that had been temporarily halted by the operation he had undergone a decade earlier. Four months before his death, however, Villa-Lobos received the prestigious Carlos Gomes Medal as part of the festivities commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro.
One might have assumed this award to be a rather dubious honor, what with his having produced no operatic work of any lasting renown. On the contrary, he had done more for Brazilian music education, and for Brazilian social awareness of music's beneficial properties and potential, than any other national celebrity before or after him. Although not the prophesied redeemer of the Brazilian national opera, Villa-Lobos was, without a doubt, the most famous and highly regarded native-born classical musician in memory.
Who would have thought that another citizen of the state of Rio, the pert and petite Bidu Sayão, would become, as a result of championing Villa-Lobos' works and following Toscanini's baton beat, the person most linked in the minds of the theater-going public with the very best that Brazil would offer in operatic circles; and the country's foremost international proponent of the Italian, French-and Brazilian-repertoires.
Copyright © 2007 by Josmar F. Lopes
A naturalized American citizen born in Brazil, Joe Lopes was raised and educated in New York City, where he worked for many years in the financial sector. In 1996, he moved to Brazil with his wife and daughters. In 2001, he returned to the U.S. and now resides in North Carolina with his family. You can email your comments to JosmarLopes@msn.com.
To read previous articles by Joe Lopes click below:
Heitor Villa-Lobos: The Brazilian Bach Part 4
Heitor Villa-Lobos: The Brazilian Bach Part 3
Heitor Villa-Lobos: The Brazilian Bach Part 2
Heitor Villa-Lobos: The Brazilian Bach Part 1
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 11
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 10
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 9
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 8
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 7
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 6
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 5
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 4
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 3
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 2
Two Brazilian Charmers Part 1
Teaching English In Brazil Part 21
Teaching English In Brazil Part 20
Teaching English In Brazil Part 19
Teaching English In Brazil Part 18
Teaching English In Brazil Part 17
Teaching English In Brazil Part 16
Teaching English In Brazil Part 15
Teaching English In Brazil Part 14
Teaching English In Brazil Part 13
Teaching English In Brazil Part 12
Teaching English In Brazil Part 11
Brazil: Thrills, Spills, and... Oh Yes, No Ifs, Ands or Head-Butts, Please
Teaching English In Brazil Part 10
Teaching English In Brazil Part 9
Brazil: A Fever Called Corinthians Part 4
Brazil: Taking Flight on Florencia's Fragile Wings Part 4
Brazil: A Fever Called Corinthians Part 3
Brazilian World Cup Debacle: Just Wait Till 2010! Part 2
Brazilian World Cup Debacle: Just Wait Till 2010! Part 1
Brazil: Taking Flight on Florencia's Fragile Wings Part 3
Brazil: A Fever Called Corinthians Part 2
Brazil: Taking Flight on Florencia‘s Fragile Wings Part 2
Brazil: A Fever Called Corinthians Part 1
Brazil: Taking Flight on Florencia's Fragile Wings Part 1
Teaching English In Brazil Part 8
Teaching English In Brazil Part 7
Teaching English In Brazil Part 6
Teaching English In Brazil Part 5
Teaching English In Brazil Part 4
Teaching English In Brazil Part 3
Teaching English In Brazil Part 2
A German Ring in the Brazilian Rainforest Part 4
A German Ring in the Brazilian Rainforest Part 3
Teaching English In Brazil - Part I
A German Ring in the Brazilian Rainforest Part 2
A German Ring in the Brazilian Rainforest Part 1
"Down in Brazil," with Michael Franks Part 3
"Down in Brazil," with Michael Franks Part 2
"Down in Brazil," with Michael Franks Part 1
Brazil: A Candid Talk with Gerald Thomas
Getting to the "bottom" of Brazil's Gerald Thomas
A Brazilian Diva Torn Between Europe and Brazil
The Enraged Genius of Brazil‘s Maestro Neschling
A German Ring in the Brazilian Rainforest
Brazil's Musical Polyglots: What Was That You Were Singing?
Did Bossa Nova Kill Opera in Brazil?
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2/7/2007
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