Manuel de Falla La vida breve opera to a libretto by Carlos Fernández-Shaw. Directed 2011 by Giancarlo del Monaco at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia. Stars Cristina Gallardo-Domâs (Salud), Jorge de León (Paco), María Luisa Corbacho (La abuela), Felipe Bou (El tío Sarvaor), Sandra Ferrández (Carmela/1st and 3rd street-seller), Natalia Lunar (2nd street-seller), Isaac Galán (Manuel), and Antonio Lozano (Voice in the forge/Distant voice/Voice of a street-seller). Features flamenco performers Esperanza Fernández and Juan Carlos Gómez Pastor. Also features dancers Alberto Ferrero, Alejandra Garcia, Sara Gil, Yolanda López, Iván Martin, Antonio Martínez, Lara Pla, Carolina Pozuelo, Alexis Maximiliano Rebman, and Cristhian Sandvoal. Also features mimes Juan José Dalmau and Zvonimir Ostoic. Lorin Maazel conducts the Orchestra de la Comunitat Valenciana and the Cor de la Comunitat Valenciana (Chorus Master Francesc Perales). Set design by Giancarlo del Monaco; costume design by Jesús Ruiz; lighting design by Wolfgang von Zoubeck; choreography by Goyo Montero. Directed for TV by Tiziano Mancini. Sung in Spanish. Released 2012, disc has 5.1 dts-HD Master Audio sound. Grade: B-
Although the music to La vida breve is fairly well-known, the short, one-dimensional opera is rarely produced. The center of attention is the Gypsy girl Salud (Cristina Gallardo-Domâs ) shown below with her grandmother (María Luisa Corbacho):
Granny has good advice:
Paco ( Jorge de León) visits every other day:
Salud knows little about the world. But her uncle Sarvaor gets around town:
Sarvaor warns Salud what to expect. She hallucinates watching from the cross the wedding of Paco and Carmela (Sandra Ferrández). The singer at the cross is a body-double for Salud (Esperanza Fernández):
Of course there’s dancing:
And Salud comes down from the cross in her hallucination to sing to Paco and Carmela:
But Salud is really outside the party grieving as Granny and Sarvaor try to comfort her. Salud laments uncontrollably:
Salud crashes the party with Sarvaor’s fighting knife in her hand:
The wedding guests are astonished:
Salud offers Paco the blade . . .
I’ll not spoil it by telling you how it comes to this:
Giancarlo del Monaco opted for brutal simplicity in design. Everything in this production is in black, white, brown, pus yellow, and the various shades of blood as it clots. The largely low lighting seems to be mostly projected thru red filters. This doubtless worked well in the live theater even with smoke—the human eye can adjust to extreme conditions well and still see clearly. But the red lighting and smoke does reduces PQ. Resolution is poor, skin looks pasty/shiny, and makeup looks odd. But this was probably exactly what del Monaco wanted: the creepy look of a silent-movie that well supports Cristina Gallardo-Domâs’s masterful portrayal of Salud’s tragedy. And Giancarlo gives us here probably the most realistic depiction of a knife wound that we have in our opera and ballet videos. Picture content is fine with plenty of long-range shots as well as great close-ups. So overall, the director’s look here is acceptable in the Blu-ray format. (There was also a DVD version of this, which must look like some early VHS tape.)
The singer/actors are fine. Cristina Gallardo-Damâs probably owned the role of Salud world-wide for a long time. Felipe Bou, our favorite bass, doesn't get to sing a lot, but he sure looks convincing as Salud's uncle (Bou also appears as Coline in Giancarlo del Monaco's great Bohème.)
There's just bit more than a hour of music here, so this is not a great value. We wish C Major had put this on a double-feature disc with another opera or other Falla orchestral music. But the dramatic impact of this production is really strong, so we give this a B-. If you have a keen interest in La Vida breve, this is an A title since it remains in 2020 the only video ever of this work.
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