Guacamayo's Old Song and Dance
GUACAMAYO
(a.k.a. Guacamayo's Old Song and Dance)
commissioned by the Canadian Opera Company (Toronto)
Words by Melissa Cameron
Music by John Oliver
Instrumentation
5 voices, brass, winds, synthesizers, samplers and percussion.
Words by Melissa Cameron
Music by John Oliver
Instrumentation
5 voices, brass, winds, synthesizers, samplers and percussion.
The Story
The story of GUACAMAYO'S OLD SONG AND DANCE, a one-act opera for five singers and twelve instrumentalists performing on acoustic and electronic instruments, is drawn from the Popul Vuh, an ancient book of the Maya peoples, who still live in Guatemala and sounthern Mexico. In the opera, five contemporary Mayas (two grandparents, two grandchildren and a storyteller) give us a glimpse of their oral tradition by telling and enacting the story of Seven Macaw, and his two sons Zipacna and Cabracan--false gods pretending to be the creators of Light, the Mountains, and the Flatlands, respectively.
The story takes place in a time when people were made of wood. The (true) Creator-Gods, collectively referred to as "Hurikan" (from which we derive the word "hurricane"), had failed for the third time in their attempt to create the human race. They were just conceiving the sun and moon, and contriving a big flood to flush out the wooden people to make way for another try at the creation of mankind when they noticed these False Gods on the earth. Our story begins as the two boy-warrior-gods, Hunahpu and Ixbalanque (Eesh-ba-lan-kay) are on their way, sent by Hurikan, to trick the three False Gods into their own deaths.
The subsequent missions of trickery, recounted by these five people of today, take on increasingly contemporary significance as the storytellers reinforce the ancient Maya belief in eternal recurrence: events will come again, though differing in detail.
The story takes place in a time when people were made of wood. The (true) Creator-Gods, collectively referred to as "Hurikan" (from which we derive the word "hurricane"), had failed for the third time in their attempt to create the human race. They were just conceiving the sun and moon, and contriving a big flood to flush out the wooden people to make way for another try at the creation of mankind when they noticed these False Gods on the earth. Our story begins as the two boy-warrior-gods, Hunahpu and Ixbalanque (Eesh-ba-lan-kay) are on their way, sent by Hurikan, to trick the three False Gods into their own deaths.
The subsequent missions of trickery, recounted by these five people of today, take on increasingly contemporary significance as the storytellers reinforce the ancient Maya belief in eternal recurrence: events will come again, though differing in detail.
The First Production
The Commission and First Production |
The Canadian Opera Company commissioned GUACAMAYO'S OLD SONG AND DANCE in 1989. The work was completed and produced in collaboration with The Banff Centre for the Arts in 1991, the first full-length opera to be produced by the Canadian Opera Company's Composer-in-Residence program, and the first commission by the Canadian Opera Company of a full-length opera since Louis Riel in 1967. The production reached 79 percent capacity.
The opera played on five nights only: on February 26, 28 & March 2, 1991 at the Imperial Oil Opera Theatre, The Joey and Toby Tannenbaum Opera Centre, Toronto, Canada, and on March 8 & 10, 1991 at the Margaret Greenham Theatre, The Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff, Canada. Here is the original cast:
Guacamayo: GARY RIDEOUT
Ixbalanque: NORINE BURGESS
Hunahpu: VALERIE GONZALEZ
Ixmucane: WENDY NIELSEN
Ixpyacoc: ROBERT MILNE
Conductor: RICHARD BRADSHAW
Director: FRANCOIS RACINE
Designer: LAARA CASSELLS
Lighting Designer: HARRY FREHNER
Stage Manager: FIONA MACGREGOR
Guacamayo: GARY RIDEOUT
Ixbalanque: NORINE BURGESS
Hunahpu: VALERIE GONZALEZ
Ixmucane: WENDY NIELSEN
Ixpyacoc: ROBERT MILNE
Conductor: RICHARD BRADSHAW
Director: FRANCOIS RACINE
Designer: LAARA CASSELLS
Lighting Designer: HARRY FREHNER
Stage Manager: FIONA MACGREGOR
Listen
Score excerpts from tenor and piano score
