La Vida Breve: Chautauqua Opera Conservatory at Chautauqua Institution
Route 394, Chautauqua, NY 14722
Performance Date: July, 28 at The Amphitheater
Music by: Manuel de Falla
Librettist: Carlos Fernández Shaw
Stage Director: Emma Griffin
Conductor: Timothy Muffitt
La Vida Breve, with music by Manuel de Falla and a libretto by Carlos Fernández Shaw, is considered one of the greatest operas written in Spanish. Written in 1905, it’s a kind of “tragic zarzuela”, a hothouse verismo opera that mixes Andalusian folk songs into a score shimmering with French Impressionism. This vivid and engrossing opera centers on Salud, the working-class heroine, a victim of passion and betrayal. Salud loves Paco, a sophisticated cad, who offers her pledges of love but marries another, wealthier, girl, leaving Salud desolate with heartbreak. Only one hour long, La Vida Breve is sonically thrilling, with richly sung emotion and vivacious rhythms — a gripping story of the human condition.