Festival Opera Tigre 2016 – Michał Znaniecki

Another way to experience opera

Michal Znaniecki is organizing a month-and-a-half-long festival on Tigre Island. He hopes it will be a feast for the senses.

The Tigre Delta is the setting chosen by renowned Polish director Michal Znaniecki to develop an opera festival that, with an emphasis on cultural exchange with Poland, aims to attract audiences from Latin America.

“The Masada Opera Festival in Israel inspired me,” says Znaniecki in impeccable Spanish, blending a typical Buenos Aires accent with Spanish. “In the Masada desert,” he says, “the mountain serves as a backdrop. You get there by camel because cars aren’t allowed; it’s an archaeological site, a protected site. I did a production of La Traviata there and decided there was no point in creating a stage set: those illuminated mountains were so beautiful that I thought it would be pointless to compete with them. Even the bars and restaurants there fit the title set there, so my Arc de Triomphe was going to be infinitely less interesting than everything happening around my production. At Masada, you spend hours before entering the opera house, but from the moment you arrive, you’re in the mood. Imagine what it’s like to spend a day at the Dead Sea and then go to the opera at night. There are 10,000 people enjoying the opera before the opera, in the lobby. Ten thousand people come to the festival. They go on scheduled flights, private planes, whatever. Their idea is to live a different experience, and they achieve it. I want the Tigre Opera Festival to have that spirit.”

–How did you come up with the Tiger Delta as a place to do something similar to Masada?
–I fell in love with the delta as soon as I visited. I searched for a place for three years and finally found Kaiola Blue Island. I think it’s the perfect place to do shows. If 10,000 people come to Masada, a desert, why wouldn’t they come to a place like the Tiger Delta?

Israel is much closer to all the Western musical centers than our delta. Do you imagine the turnout could be significant?
I think so. There are many people who have never been to the opera just because the building seems like something for the elite, but I imagine they’ll be willing to experience theater and music in the open air. Opera is an expensive spectacle. I don’t intend to make it free because that would destroy the quality, but I do think it’s possible to convey that adventurous experience: entering the jungle, walking through it, exploring alongside the music. Going back a bit to the beginnings of opera: a blend of words, music, and food. Because you have to know that until Wagner decided to give prominence to his own works, opera houses were all about eating and chatting. If you could see the kitchens in the boxes at La Scala! I also hope that those who already enjoy opera will get out of their dark theater seats or their armchairs at home to experience that more primal experience, that feast of the senses. Last year, for the first edition of the festival, we welcomed many people from Rosario, Córdoba, and Entre Ríos to see The Fairy Queen.

–Is your intention to do only early opera?
–No, not at all. We bring together Shakespeare and Purcell because their text and music can be translated, unlike what Puccini demands. But we don’t have a specific style or period in mind.

–One of the reasons why it’s difficult to perform opera outdoors is the acoustics. How do you solve it?
–When we started this project, we thought we would need amplification, but then, after listening to the musicians, we realized we wouldn’t. I don’t know if it’s the effect of the water, which transmits sound very well, or the fact that at night the silence is so absolute, but the fact is that it can be heard perfectly well from everywhere without having to resort to microphones and cables. I’ve been told that at night, voices can be heard quite well on mainland Tigre.

–They’ll perform Baroque music with original instruments and gut strings. Isn’t it a huge problem keeping those instruments in tune with the humidity of the delta?
–We thought about not using old instruments because theaters normally have to be tuned every half hour, so on the island, with the humidity, it would be impossible to play for more than twenty minutes at a time. But Purcell’s operas were created to accompany Shakespeare’s texts, which is why they are approximately fifteen-minute numbers followed by a text. That’s the time supposedly used to tune the instruments. So the solution is that while the audience moves to another part of the island, the instrumentalists go into the house to tune. So we can play with Baroque instruments. But that’s one of the reasons why we don’t perform the great works of the repertoire like Puccini or Wagner. We perform works that give us more freedom.

–This year’s series also includes music in a convent. What’s the program?
–It’s the Convent of San Francisco, which is five minutes away by boat. It’s little-known because it’s not a tourist attraction. It’s a beautiful building that looks like the magic castle on an enchanted island. Actor Nacho Gadano will play Prospero there. The audience begins their tour at the convent and then goes to the platform in the water where there will be an aquatic dance performance organized by the Julio Bocca Foundation. There will be a two-meter sphere floating in the water. It’s beautiful.

“But the delta waters are treacherous.
” “Yes, but this is a private canal. It’s very calm, there won’t be any problems. This year’s program features fifteen shows, one every three days. There are also workshops for children who have already started, so they can later take part in some of the productions.”

–There’s also a workshop for children. Is it held in schools?
–Not only. We work with island children and those vacationing in the delta. We offer workshops almost at the end of the school year so they can join the various programs we run later. The theme this year was water. The children who were born on the island have a lot to tell us, many things we don’t know. We artists are driven by our egos; we think we know everything, and the island children surprise us with their knowledge of the river. Water teaches them a relationship with time that would be good to learn something from.

–The program includes figures such as bandoneon player Pablo Mainetti and actress Laura Oliva. What will they be doing?
–Pablo accompanies The Fairy Queen , a version for bandoneon, accordion, and electric guitar. We thought about instruments that can be moved, because in The Tempest we have a space for an orchestra and choir. The Fairy Queen is designed to move to ten locations in the jungle, so we need mobile instruments. It works very well. In Poland, we presented it in a giant park and it was a huge success. For her part, Laura Oliva will perform a recital with musical comedy songs. There will be everything because the festival runs from January 5th to February 20th, a month and a half of music in the delta.