Cuentos de Eva Luna (2005, rev. 2007)

Five songs with words by Isabel Allende (en español).
for mezzo-soprano, guitar, cello, charango, and optional percussion.
15 min.

I. Prologue: Entramos

II. First Interlude: Había una vez

Extended concert version

III. Second Interlude: Véndeme un pasado

Extended concert version

IV. Epilogue: Por fin amaneció

V. Prologue Reprise

Studio Recording

Andréa Alfaro, mezzo-soprano
El Beh, cello and percussion
Mike Roberts, guitar and charango

Concert Performance

January 25, 2008, San Francisco Conservatory Concert Hall

Andréa Alfaro, mezzo-soprano
Adaiha MacAdam-Somer, cello
Zac Selissen, guitar
Mike Roberts, charango

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Notes

I set passages of Isabel Allende's radiant prose to music for a one-act adaptation of three Allende short stories, which premiered at UC Berkeley in March 2005 under the direction of Nina Billone and art direction of Jennifer Johung. Drawing from South American folk music, flamenco, and traditional Arabic melodies, these five songs frame the tales. In Allende's world of "magical realism," the music brings a touch of the supernatural to the more tangible world of the stage.

A new concert version of Eva Luna premiered in May 2007 at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, at the guitar recital of Zac Selissen.

Text Translation

(by Mike)

1) Prologue: Entramos

We entered a great room
Hawthorne logs burning in the fireplace
And a high bed
Covered with the lightest comforter in the world
And a mosquito net hanging from the ceiling
White as a bridal veil.

He drew near me with bold steps
And proceeded to kiss me
As if in a romance novel.
We kept caressing each other
And whispering those words
Only new lovers dare pronounce,
Because they are still immune to
The banality of sweet nothings.

That night, and every night thereafter
We made love with unremitting passion
Until the timbers of the house took on
the refulgent glow of gold.
After that, for a time, we loved
more simply
Until that love was spent
And fell apart in tatters.

Or perhaps things didn't happen
that way.

2) First Interlude: Había una vez

We entered a great room,
Hawthorne logs burning in the fireplace.

Once upon a time there was a woman
Whose trade was the telling of tales.
She went everywhere
Hawking her wares:
Stories of adventures, of suspense
Of horror or of lust
All at a fair price.

3) Second Interlude: Véndeme un pasado

He arrived exhausted, cradling his gun
Covered with the dust of faraway places
"So: sell me a past, because mine is full of blood
and lamentations
And I can't bear it through this life.
I've been in so many battles
That I've lost myself entirely—
Even my mother's name," he said.

4) Epilogue: Por fin amaneció

We entered a great room...
White like a bridal veil.

All afternoon and all night
She crafted a noble past for that soldier.
It was a lengthy history
Because she wanted to give him a storybook ending
And she had to invent it entirely
From his birth to the present day.

At last day broke
And in the first light of dawn
She realized that the smell of sadness
Had turned to mist.
She sighed, closed her eyes,
And felt her spirit empty
Like a newborn child's.

5) Prologue Reprise

After that, for a time, we loved more simply
Until that love was spent
And fell apart in tatters.