First reports from "A Menina das Nuvens"

[Foto: divulgação Palácio das Artes / Paulo Lacerda]

The first review of the important production of the opera A Menina das Nuvens - The Girl in the Clouds - has appeared. Irineu Franco Perpetuo writes in the Concerto website that while the opera "may not be the best Villa-Lobos, [...] it is worth knowing."

Perpetuo describes some of the challenges that came with this project, including the dangerous, 7-metre fall of baritone Licio Bruno, which necessitated some cast changes. Apparently Bruno is recovering well from this scary incident.

Perpetuo complains of excessive length and some banal writing by Villa-Lobos in the first two acts. But all comes together in the third, "...where the lush orchestration and neo-romantic Villa-Lobos of the 1950 meets the melodic serenade of the 1930s and some rhythmic and harmonic daring of the 1920s."

Let's hope that this production is a sign that Villa's stage works might be in for more productions, and recordings, in the future.

Girl in the Clouds

If I had to choose one Villa-Lobos work to hear it would be this one: A Menina das Nuvens (Girl in the Clouds), the 1958 "Musical Adventure in Three Acts." This piece received high praise from Prof. Tarasti:

"It represents the concentrated late Villa-Lobos, with a harmonically and melodically innocently simple texture extraordinarily well suited to a fairy tale opera meant for children."

This work has never been recorded, and I know of only two performances. One was soon after Villa-Lobos's death, in 1960 in Rio de Janeiro. The other was at the Americas Society in New York in 1989, conducted by Alfred Heller. It's too bad Alfred didn't arrange for a recording of this performance - I wonder if by any chance there might be a bootleg recording out there.

It was great to hear, then (from Prof. Eduardo W. Dias) that a new production is being planned in Belo Horizonte in September 2009. Roberto Duarte will be conducting the Orquestra Sinfônica de Minas Gerais at the Palácio das Artes in Belo Horizonte. I hope that a recording might follow.