FULL LA PURPURA DE LA ROSA Madrid 1999 Graciela Oddone, Isabel Monar, Cecilia Díaz, Stephanie d’Oustrac

Information on the Performance

• Work Title: La púrpura de la rosa   
• Composer: Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco  
• Libretto: Calderón de la Barca    Libretto Text, Libretto Index
• Venue & Opera Company: Teatro de la Zarzuela, Madrid, Spain  
• Recorded: 1999
• Type: Staged Opera Live
• Singers: Graciela Oddone, Isabel Monar, Cecilia Díaz, Stephanie d'Oustrac, Victoria Manso, Adriana Fernández, Marcello Lippi, Susanna Moncayo
• Conductor: Gabriel Garrido  
• Orchestra: Conjunto instrumental Elyma de Ginebra  
• Chorus: Coro del Teatro de la Zarzuela  
• Ballet: Ballet del Gran Teatro de Ginebra  
• Stage Director: Óscar Araiz  
• Costume Designer:   

Information about the Recording

• Published by: RTVE  
• Date Published: 2000  
• Format: Broadcast
• Quality Video: 4 Audio:4
• Subtitles: yessubs, essubs  
• Video Recording from: RTVE     FULL VIDEO
•  

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON THIS PERFORMANCE

La púrpura de la rosa (The Blood of the Rose) is an opera in one act, composed by Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco to a Spanish libretto by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, a great writer of the Spanish Golden Age.

It is the first known opera to be composed and performed in the Americas and is Torrejón y Velasco’s only surviving opera. La púrpura de la rosa was first performed in Lima in 1701 to celebrate the 18th birthday of Philip V and the first anniversary of his succession to the Spanish throne. The libretto, in polymetric verse and filled with lush mythological imagery, is a re-telling of the Ovidian tale of the loves of Venus and Adonis. Torrejón y Velasco was not the first to use Calderón’s libretto. The text had previously been set for a theatrical pageant in honor of the marriage of Louis XIV and Maria Teresa of Spain in 1660, with music possibly written by Juan Hidalgo de Polanco, composer and master of music at the court of Madrid. With its erotic poetry and music, this setting was very popular at the Spanish court and had several revivals.

The Viceroy of Peru, Don Melchor Portocarrero y Lasso de la Vega, instructed Torrejón to compose a piece of dramatic music for the Kingdom’s celebration of King Philip V’s 18th birthday and the first anniversary of his succession to the throne. La púrpura de la rosa was chosen as the subject. The work premiered on 19 October 1701 in the Palace of the Viceroy, Lima. The opera was revived in 1707, 1708, and 1731 in Peru and somewhat later in Mexico and has had several performances in modern times.

Its US premiere took place at Rosary College outside Chicago on 26 June 1992 in a production by the Baroque music ensemble Ars Musica Chicago. (Andrew Schultze, director and musicologist; Stephen Blackwelder, music director; Kate Lanham, choreographer) and soon thereafter at the Aveda Institute in Minneapolis on 28 October 1994 in a production by the Baroque ensemble Ex Machina. (James Middleton, director; Bob Skiba, choreographer; Barbara Weiss, music director; Louise Stein, musicologist/adviser).

In May 1999 it was performed at the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre in Bloomington, Indiana, as part of the Bloomington Early Music Festival and in partnership with Indiana University’s Latin American Music Center and the Bloomington Area Arts Council (James Middleton, stage direction; Bernardo Illari, music edition and direction)

In October 1999, there were performances at Bâtiment des Forces motrices in Geneva and in Santiago, Chile. The Santiago performance by the ensemble Syntagma Musicum (conducted by Alejandro Reyes) marked the 150th anniversary of the Universidad de Santiago de Chile. The opera was also performed at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid in November 1999 in a co-production by the Teatro de La Zarzuela and the Grand Théâtre de Genève. (Óscar Araiz, director and choreographer; Gabriel Garrido, conductor). La púrpura de la rosa received its British stage premiere at the University of Sheffield Drama Studio on 27 February 2003, conducted and directed by Andrew Lawrence-King. The production received two more performances in Sheffield before touring to Manchester, Nottingham, Galway, and Dublin.

On 26 September 2013, La Purpura de la rosa received its Israeli premiere at the Abu Gosh Festival performed by Ensemble PHOENIX on period instruments and its vocal branch VOCE PHOENIX, conducted from the viola da gamba by Myrna Herzog, with staging by Regina Alexandrovskaya.

In 2015 La púrpura de la rosa was presented at the Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci, staged by Hinrich Horstkotte and conducted by Eduardo Egüez (Ensemble La Chimera)roque metaphor that encrypts or resolves the title of the work

Quoted from Wikipedia