Heartening news from Manhattan, where Hispanic Culture Arts, Inc. joined with the Luis Belliard School in Washington Heights, in producing a specially adapted version of La Gran Vía by Chueca and Valverde.

After a 10-week residency, featuring intensive tuition in music theatre singing, dancing and design from a distinguished team of music and theatre professionals, 4th and 5th graders performed a special version of the zarzuela, under the baton of Pablo Zinger and featuring mezzo-soprano Anna Tonna , baritone Iván Amaro and classical Spanish dance artist Anna de la Paz. Hannah Johnson-Walsh, of the Roundabout Theatre in Manhattan, led the design team. The renowned Huelva baritone Juan Jesús Rodríguez (fresh from a run of performances as Ford in Verdi’s Falstaff at the Metropolitan Opera) also took part, presenting an inspirational workshop with the pupils.

With dialogue in English and songs in Spanish, the production evidently hit the spot, as you can read in this longer report on diariolírico.

Given imaginative initiatives of this quality, the future for zarzuela in the USA looks ever brighter.

© Christopher Webber and zarzuela.net, 2019

La Gran Vía
Federico Chueca
zarzuela.net

31/V/2019