Juan Trigos: Ella-Miau (Hemofiction Opera in One Act)

Description

JUAN TRIGOS
ELLA-MIAU

HEMOFICTION OPERA IN ONE ACT
Libretto by Juan Trigos S.

Juan Trigos, conductor
Daniela D’Ingiullo (Ella-Miau), soprano
UK New Music Ensemble
Jimmy O’Donnell, alto saxophone
Josh Smith, percussion
Brandon S. Coleman, electric guitar
Jacob Coleman, keyboards

WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING
Release date: 12/30/2024

Ella-Miau (She-Meow in English) is a hemofiction opera in one act with an original libretto by playwright Juan Trigos S. (father of the composer), and scored for soprano, alto saxophone, electric guitar, piano/Fender Rhodes piano/accordion (one player) and percussion (one or two players), with a duration of fifty minutes approximately. The work was reviewed in 2022 and premiered the same year by Daniela D’Ingiullo (soprano), The Last Hundred Ensemble under the baton of the composer in a fully staged production of the opera realized in collaboration with the puppet company La Coperacha at the Herbert and Nicole Wertheim Concert Hall of Miami, Florida, and Teatro Degollado of Guadalajara, Mexico, for the 25º Festival Cultural de Mayo. This work is an example of Juan Trigos’ personal musical language, which led him to a concept he refers to as Abstract Folklore – A process in which he abstracts and assimilates various literary and vernacular musical traditions into a modern compositional rhetoric – and belong to the group of Hemofiction Operas that the author has been working on for many years. Hemofiction is a literary aesthetic invented by the author’s father, a literature of search which reflects on the bleeding of the consciousness in multiple mirrors, where it contemplates with horror the thousand faces of personal infantilism, process which endures desolation and anguish, indispensable symptoms on the road to individuation, path of ascension towards human. There are several aspects that give this work its originality. One of them is the challenge of writing a 50-minute piece for a single singer, the soprano in this case, who is entrusted with a technically and expressively very demanding part. A combination of bel canto with different contemporary techniques, such as singing with a lot of air, quarter-tone oscillations, singing nasally, etc. Another core aspect of the work is the treatment of the musical material in the form, which incorporates the psychological elements found in the libretto, such as the feline dances and the compound words that add the word miau (meow), such as: casaMiau (houseMeow), alegríaMiau (joyfulMeow), etc. This is achieved through the principle of variation and manipulation of the original material that acts on both components. The dances, but above all the compound words (with meow), become more present and abundant towards the end of the work. They represent the character’s conversion into a cat, that is, madness and therefore loneliness. It is also worth mentioning about the orchestration. In particular, the use of the saxophone and the electric guitar (a true challenge) as an intrinsic part of Ella-Miau’s personality give the work a unique sound. They symbolize the notion of the cat and homelessness through the insinuation of an urban (street) environment without a particular location.

Juan Trigos