Opera in Latin America
Newspaper articles suggest that, around the time that Italian opera was introduced to Latin America, it was received with some disdain due to the language barrier.
[2] Although the libretto follows the Greek myth, the tragic love story is seen as a resemblance of the alliance that was formed from a political marriage between the Spanish and French monarchies.
A Noite de São João may be considered the first truly Brazilian opera, with a text in Portuguese by Elias Álvares Lobo.
His operas Romeo y Julieta, Ildegonda, Gino Corsini, and Cleopatra were very successful among the public of Mexico City, and premiered in Europe.
The work of Ricardo Castro is a part of the tradition of historic, nationalist operas, such as Guatimotzin by Aniceto Ortega, Il Guarany by Antônio Carlos Gomes, Ollanta and Atahualpa by José María Valle Riestra, Huémac by Pascual de Rogatis, and Quiché Vinak by Jesús Castillo.
(However, many have called Virginia, by José Ángel Montero, the first Venezuelan opera, though it premiered in 1877 under the auspices of the president Antonio Guzmán Blanco) .
Another major Venezuelan composer was Reynaldo Hahn, his operas include Le Merchand de Venise and Ciboulette.
Other Uruguayan composers that wrote opera in this era, motivated by the success of La Parisina, include León Ribeiro and Alfonso Broqua.
Alfonso Broqua wrote one opera, Tabaré, based on the eponymous 1888 poem by José Zorrilla de San Martín.
Among the most important operas of this type are Liropeya by León Ribeiro (Uruguay); Guatimotzin by Aniceto Ortega (Mexico); Il Guarany by Antonio Carlos Gomes (1836–1896), based on a novel by the Brazilian José Martiniano de Alencar; Atzimba by Ricardo Castro (Mexico, 1864–1907); the three eponymous operas based on the Tabaré by José Zorrilla de San Martín, written, respectively, by Arturo Cosgaya Ceballos (Mexico, 1869–1937), Heliodoro Oseguera (Mexico), and Alfonso Broqua (Uruguay); Los Martirios de Colon written by Federico Ruiz (Venezuela) and the three Ecuadorian operas based on the novel Cumandá o un drama entre salvajes by Juan León Mera, namely Cumandá by Luis H. Salgado (1903–1977), Cumandá o la virgen de las selvas by Pedro Pablo Traversari Salazar (1874–1956), and Cumandá by Sixto María Durán Cárdenas (1875–1947).
The most influential Argentinian opera composers include Ettore Panizza (whose opera Aurora was commissioned for the Colón inaugural season and Bizancio from 1939), Felipe Boero (El Matrero from 1929 his most famous opera, also Tucumán 1918, Ariana y Dyonisos, 1920, Raquela, 1923 and Siripo, 1937), Juan José Castro (composer of Bodas de sangre and La zapatera prodigiosa, both after Federico Garcia Lorca's plays and Proserpina y el extranjero, 1952), Carlos López Buchardo (El sueño de Alma, 1914), Pascual De Rogatis (Huemac, 1916 and La novia del hereje, 1934), Eduardo Garcia Mansilla (La angelical manuelita,1917), Constantino Gaito (Petronio, 1919; Ollantay, 1926, La sangre de las guitarras), 1927, Floro Ugarte (Saika, 1920), Gilardo Gilardi (Ilse, 1923; La leyenda del urutaú, 1934), Athos Palma (Nazdah, 1924), Hector Iglesias Villoud (El Oro del Inca, 1953), Virtú Maragno and Alberto Ginastera composer of Don Rodrigo, Beatrix Cenci and Bomarzo.
In 2006 Centre for Experimentation (CETC) of Teatro Colón, proposed that national poet Rodolfo Enrique Fogwill work with the composer of his choice.
The opera dealt with the presidency of Menem and the era of decadency, leading to the headline by music critic, Juan Carlos Montero, "The Poetic versus Social Degradation.
These composers include Cosgaya Ceballos, Ríos Escalante, Ricalde Moguel, Rivera Velador, Cárdenas Samada, and Jebe Halfdan.
In the first half of the 20th century, composer Julián Carrillo was an important figure in Mexican opera, along with composers similar to him, including Antonio Gomezanda, Juan León Mariscal, Julia Alonso, Sofía Cancino de Cuevas, José F. Vásquez, Arnulfo Miramontes, Rafael J. Tello, Francisco Camacho Vega, and Efraín Pérez Cámara.
Important Mexican opera composers in the early 21st century include Federico Ibarra, Daniel Catán, Leandro Espinosa, Marcela Rodríguez, Víctor Rasgado, Javier Álvarez, Roberto Bañuelas, Luis Jaime Cortez, Julio Estrada, Gabriela Ortiz, Enrique González Medina, Manuel Henríquez Romero, Leopoldo Novoa, Hilda Paredes, Mario Stern, René Torres, Juan Trigos, Samuel Zyman, Mathias Hinke, Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon, Isaac Bañuelos, Gabriel de Dios Figueroa, Enrique González-Medina, José Carlos Ibáñez Olvera, Víctor Mendoza and Emmanuel Vázquez.
Here, operas such as El Páramo by Alexis Rago and Los martirios de Colón by Federico Ruiz have recently premiered.
Perú In November 2012 chamber operas "Secreto", "La Cena", "Post Mortem", "María Fernanda se reb(v)ela" and "Sacrificio" by composers Clara Petrozzi, Gonzalo Garrido Lecca, Sadiel Cuentas, Rafael Leonardo Junchaya and Alvaro Zúñiga were premiered in the French Alliance Theatre.
