“Le Villi” took us to witness the consequences of unfulfilled promises, a realistic set design, magical lighting, period costumes and a stage full of talent, only Mazatlecan talent.
“Le villi” is a short opera-ballet with music by one of the most important composers of Italian opera of the 19th and early 20th centuries, Giacomo Puccini. The staging is the second major event of the Festival Cultural Mazatlán 2023, a production of the Instituto Municipal de Cultura.
During this production with scenery by Víctor Manuel Carrizales, costumes by Elisa Espinosa and Multimedia by Karla Jaqueline Aguirre, time first passed in a festive, romantic way, in a way that fatuous love makes us feel, but little by little, the music seductively and gently leads to a time of tension and that feeling of exquisite curiosity when you already know what will happen, but you are completely waiting to see what it will be like.
Romantic and erotic dances and an uproar – with the performance of the Mazatlán Ballet Company under the direction of maestra Zoila Fernández; sublime and dark choirs -voices from the Guillermo Sarabia Choir of CULTURA, directed by maestro Enrique Patrón de Rueda and maestra Martha Félix- that in both cases made our skin the mirror of the soul, and again, again the Camerata Mazatlán under the baton of the Guest Director, maestro Sergio Freeman, taking us without us realizing it to discover and live with them what William Shakespeare said: “Music is the food of those who live by love.”
Rebeca de Rueda, soprano, and tenor Alejandro Yépez, touched us and distressed us; José Miguel Lora, baritone, took us into that existentialist confusion with his song saying, “Ah forgive Lord, the inhuman idea that came from my bloody heart.”
At the end, the applause began before the curtain closed.
Maestro Ramón Gómez Polo was in charge of stage direction and emphasized: “We are grateful and excited by the public’s response, it was hard work, in which many talents are mixed, many ideas and aesthetic proposals are mixed, which Suddenly, have to mesh. The work carried out by the entire creative team and even with the production of the Instituto de Cultura de Mazatlán is a titanic task, so when you see it crystallized, when you see the result, you see the conclusion, it is very satisfying to see how it impacts the public and if we manage to touch the fibers of the attendees, that is a wonderful reward.”
Maestra Zoila Fernández Fernández, Director of the Mazatlán Ballet Company, said very excitedly: “It has been a very special night, because many talents came together within this magnificent opera, which I understand is the first time it has been performed in Mazatlán, for me. It was an honor to be able to direct together with maestro Agustín Martínez the entire choreographic part of the opera and really bring together so much talent with different concerns, with work sometimes in a different way, it was an achievement to unite them, all because of the passion that unites us and more than anything because of the context of the work itself.”
Maestro Sergio Freeman, who directed the orchestra and soloists in this staging, expressed: “The public’s reaction is equivalent to the passion and magic of the singers, the orchestra, the music and the composer, today we saw an honest, very successful performance and the audience received us in the same way. A completely Mazatlan production, most of them trained here, at the Municipal Arts Center, including me, also produced by the Instituto de Cultura de Mazatlán.
Prior to the Opera-Ballet “Le Villi” there was a Puccini gala in which the voices of soprano Yamel Domort and tenor Andrés Carrillo were admired, who alone and in duet and with the accompaniment of the Guillermo Sarabia Choir and the Camerata Mazatlán , left the environment conducive and expectant to continue knowing and learning what the arts have not stopped teaching and showing humanity, peace and capacity, individually and as a group.
