On December 27th, 2011 the FIU + Art Gallery at Lincoln Road and Orchestra Miami presented a performance to honor Cuban-American composer Jorge Martín, the 2011 Cintas Foundation Fellowship Award Winner and to promote Orchestra Miami's 6th Season which opens on September 29, 2012 with the opera Before Night Falls.
Before Night Falls follows the life of the late Cuban gay writer Reinaldo Arenas from childhood poverty in Cuba to his emigration to the United States in the 80's and his last decade suffering from AIDS in Manhattan.
Disillusioned by the Cuban Revolution and persecuted by the Castro regime, the opera follows his trials and tribulations as a political prisoner forced to smuggle his manuscripts abroad for publication.
"Reinaldo Arenas wrote his memoir Before Night Falls in a race against the clock when he knew he was dying of AIDS with no hope of a cure," said Elaine Rinaldi, Orchestra Miami Artistic Director.
Jorge Martín, a Yale graduate with a PhD in music composition from Columbia University created an operabased on those memoirs giving a dramatic performance on the most difficult moments of a dissident writer who was imprisoned and forced confession escaping from Cuba to Miami in the Mariel boatlift in 1980.
"The story of the Mariel boatlift is the story of Miami, a cataclysmic event which changed our city forever, both in terms of population and in the change of the social, political and human landscape," said Rinaldi.
Rinaldi, the founder and director of Orchestra Miami, a nonprofit organization established since 2006, has been always on the look for works which she feels will be relevant to the city's vibrant cultural community.
In 2000, Before Night Falls was made into an award-winning feature film directed by Julian Schnabel and starring Javier Bardem and Johnny Depp.
Orchestra Miami will present four performances of the fully-staged opera, in a gorgeous production from the Fort Worth Opera which presented the world premiere Before Night Falls in June 2010 at the Forth Worth Opera Festival obtaining rave reviews.
"Jorge Martín is to be more than applauded throughout his opera with a score that can stand up to just about any opera," said David Weuste, Rosebrook Classical Review critic.
El Nuevo Herald Opera Critic Daniel Fernandez said that "despite that the opera was premiered in a city far away from people who is not familiar with the Cuban issues, the public responded exhilarated with a story of a homosexual guajiro in a Southern state where the virility of the cowboys are highly worshiped."
Directed by David Gately, Before Night Falls will feature the outstanding young baritone Wes Mason as Reinaldo Arenas, Javier Abreu as Pepe, Seth Mease Carico as Victor and Jesus Garcia as Ovidio.
New choreography by Miami performance icon Octavio Campos. The opera also features a chorus of 44 voices and a 73 piece orchestra conducted by Rinaldi.
Orchestra Miami Before Night Falls will premiere in Miami at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in October, 2012.
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