Opera "Hércules en el Mato Grosso"

Esteban Insinger, music

Pola Oloixarac, libretto

In collaboration with the Centro de Experimentación del Teatro Colón (CETC), Music of the Americas presents the U.S. premiere of the staged opera Hércules en el Mato Grosso, which explores the early twentieth-century travels of French-Brazilian photographer Hércule Florence in the Amazon. Argentine novelist Pola Oloixarac developed the story for the libretto as a research assistant to the Department of Romance Languages at Harvard, and the score by Buenos Aires-based composer-pianist Esteban Insinger and set design by French-Argentine visual artist Luna Paiva create a unique world in which the German Baron von Langsdorff and Florence are free to explore. Buenos Aires-born Clara Cullen directs baritone Alejandro Spies, who performed at Americas Society in 2013, and a star-studded cast of singers, led by Music of the Americas' own Director Sebastián Zubieta, who also led the cast in the work's world premiere at the CETC in November 2014.

CAST:

Peter Tantsits: Hércules Florence

Alejandro Spies: Baron von Langsdorff

Alice Teyssier: Anaconda 1

Sarah Brailey: Anaconda 2

Sebastián Zubieta: conductor

Leandro Rodríguez Jáuregui: piano

Taka Kigawa: piano

Esteban Insinger: composer

Pola Oloixarac: libretto

Luna Paiva: set design

Clara Cullen: director

Helena Seward: production manager

Produced by Music of the Americas / Centro de Experimentación del Teatro Colón