Love in the time of the Inquisition: Flamenco opera 'Llantos 1492' has its world premiere with Opera Southwest

Opera Southwest makes history with the world premiere of an ambitious flamenco opera, “Llantos 1492.”

It’s a gut-punching story of love and defiance, set during the Spanish Inquisition, that’s visually and musically dazzling.

“Llantos” is OSW’s third world premiere since Tony Zancanella became its executive director in 2012 — a testament to his commitment to opera as a living art.

“If opera is only a museum piece, it becomes irrelevant,” he said.

Along with new operas, Zancanella has revived numerous lost and neglected ones.

“We’re particularly proud of our partnership with the National Hispanic Cultural Center, where we’ve been able to explore and create a rich canon of Hispanic opera that has proven very popular for Albuquerque audiences,” he said.

“Llantos” is set in 1492, widely remembered as the year King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I sent Christopher Columbus off to sea, but it was also the year they forced Spain’s last Moorish ruler, Abu Abdallah Muhammad XII, known in Europe as Boabdil, into permanent exile — a move consistent with their harsh, theocratic rule, which endeavored to crush all cultural diversity in their kingdom. The Spanish Inquisition, which they created, was in full swing.

It is amid this nightmarish political reality that the Jewish and Gitano (Romani) characters of “Llantos” — mostly fictional but impeccably researched — find their lives unraveling and their futures darkening. Sometimes they unite in solidarity. Sometimes they fall apart.

Adam Del Monte, who wrote both the music and the libretto, calls it “a cautionary tale about the dangers of religious fanaticism and bigotry of any kind.”

“In this case, it happens to be the distorted approach of the Catholic Church via the Inquisition, but it can speak to intolerance in any epoch, even our own,” Del Monte said.

Del Monte insists he is not a political artist. He is far more invested in the untold stories of centuries past than the latest news cycle.

“However, since history repeats, it is inevitable to draw parallels to things happening today,” he said.

The opera’s hero, a Sephardic Jewish lawyer with mystical inclinations named Youssef Biboldo, defends a group of young Gitanos who have been falsely accused by the Inquisition. Although Biboldo risks everything for his Gitano defendants, he is less than thrilled when his daughter, Raquel, falls in love with a Gitano herself.

“It is a point of tension and drama,” Del Monte said, because historically “both Jews and Gitanos placed high importance on marrying within the tribe.”

At the same time, he points to DNA evidence showing “a significant amount of intermarriage between the Gitanos and Jews, as well as Moors.” No amount of internal or external pressures, not even the Inquisition, was able to eradicate love.

Del Monte moved to Spain with his parents when he was only 7 years old, and he lived with the Gitanos in the caves of Sacromonte, “singing and dancing 24/7.” While in Spain, he studied under some of the greatest Gitano flamenco guitarists of all time.

“Flamenco made me into a composer,” he said. “Since it is expected of you to compose your own music and develop your own style, I instinctively understood flamenco as a series of possibilities.”

In “Llantos,” Del Monte employs nine distinct flamenco forms, as well as zarzuela (a type of Spanish operetta), medieval Sephardic music, Spanish Renaissance styles, and even elements of Russian 20th century composers Dmitri Shostakovich and Igor Stravinsky — “all channeled through a flamenco spirit.”

His greatest challenge was to adapt an intimate and “highly idiomatic” guitar-based tradition to the instrumental complexities of a full orchestra, and the result was nothing short of extraordinary. The orchestra becomes, in his words, one “giant guitar.”

Although “Llantos” bills itself as the world’s first true flamenco opera, Del Monte has had a hand in two flamenco-adjacent operas. He composed a piece of music for Osvaldo Golijov’s celebrated opera “Ainadamar,” based on the life of anti-fascist poet Federico García Lorca, and he was the flamenco guitarist for the Metropolitan Opera’s production of “Ainadamar” last year. He also composed flamenco music for Héctor Armienta’s “Zorro,” which had its world premiere at OSW in 2022.

Octavio Cardenas, who directed “Llantos,” should be a familiar name to local operagoers. He directed several OSW productions, including “Zorro.” He is also a lifelong flamenco fan.

“Flamenco is something I grew up very close to in my native Mexico,” Cardenas said.

Like Cardenas, many Gitanos in late-15th century Spain were immigrants. The director said he’s been fortunate that he has not experienced the xenophobic hostility depicted in “Llantos,” but as an immigrant, he can still relate to the story.

“All immigrants have a sense of wanting to belong,” he said. “And one belongs wherever one’s heart is and with the people you consider your family.”

Cardenas said this is the first time he’s worked in an opera with two choruses, a chora classico and a chora flamenco.

“Incorporating these two contrasting styles of singing has been a challenge,” he said. “A very rewarding challenge.”

Critics have praised the “physical and visceral” performances Cardenas gets from his actors, but he said physical gestures must always be grounded in a close reading of the text.

“I like movement but not unnecessary movement,” he said. “I like when they move for a reason, when there is a goal to reach.”

Cardenas added, “The opera has a lot of scenes you could describe as visceral.” Many scenes are also visually spectacular.

“Every time the flamenco dancers come in, it is just amazing.”

The flamenco dancers in “Llantos” come from Albuquerque’s prestigious National Institute of Flamenco, including Isabella Alderete.

The opera also boasts a cast that includes Brian James Myer (Youssef Biboldo) and Oriana Geis-Falla (Angela), rising stars in the opera world with whom Cardenas has worked previously. He calls them both “wonderful artists.”

“They not only possess beautiful, expressive voices, but they’re also great actors,” Cardenas said. “You just give them a (little) direction, and they make it their own.”

The characters in “Llantos” struggle to belong in an intolerant world. For some, that struggle ends tragically. But the music tells its own story: a triumphant blending of rhythms and harmonies that celebrate our shared humanity.

The opera will be sung in Spanish with English titles projected above the stage.

Love in the time of the Inquisition: Flamenco opera "Llantos 1492" has its world premiere with Opera Southwest