Sometimes Christmas miracles happen in the most unexpected places, and few know that better than a gifted storyteller born in the tiny town of Pastura, New Mexico whose legacy will likely live forever. Generations of families read Rudolfo Anaya’s Farolitos of Christmas to their children around this time every year, and this week one of New Mexico’s fastest-growing production companies is bringing us a family Christmas opera based on the beloved bedtime story. Opera Southwest’s The Farolitos of Christmas will run from now until Dec. 14 at the National Hispanic Cultural Center Albuquerque Journal Theatre and features some of the most beautiful music and voices you’ll find anywhere this holiday season.
Tony Zancanella, executive director of Opera Southwest grew up in New Mexico and was one of many kids who was given a copy of The Faralitos of Christmas as a gift. He says it soon became part of his family’s Christmastime activities. Opera Southwest adapted Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima with composer Hector Armienta into an opera in 2018, something Zancanella says was a watershed moment in the company’s history. When Armienta got the rights to do an adaptation of Zorro, the production was extraordinarily well-received and a big box office hit. This year, Armienta composed the music and wrote the libretto for what is sure to be another unforgettable night at the opera in Albuquerque.
The Production
“The ballet companies get to do The Nutcracker every year, which is this lovely touchstone that the world kind of knows, and lots of people will watch as their first ballet – or maybe their only ballet. And the same thing exists for a lot of theater companies, but there really isn’t anything quite like that for an opera company. I had a sense that, specifically in New Mexico, an opera based on The Farolitos of Christmas could have that kind of traction,” Zancanella says.
“I think it has the ability to be a real holiday tradition. Hector Armienta has written us some really gorgeous music. It’s cinematic, it’s lush, it sounds like Puccini. There are at least five or six really good songs in the piece that I find myself humming around the house now. There’s some instant classic kind of Christmas music that he’s written for us.”
Zancanella says the piece is only about an hour in length. He thinks a lot of people are afraid of opera because the art form has a reputation for being too long. This certainly isn’t that type of event. It’s exactly the right length for a busy holiday schedule, and kids are sure to enjoy it – even if they have a short attention span.
Opera Southwest produces all of its operas at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, a venue Zancanella calls “one of the very best theaters for opera in the country, if not in the world.” The intimate little theater only has about 600 seats, so there’s not a bad spot in the house. On Dec. 14, the NHCC will be having a special “Luminito” event for the final performance to celebrate the culture around farolitos – or luminarias, depending on which name you prefer to use.
“You probably know that there’s a geographic north/south linguistic divide between what we call these lovely Christmas lanterns. And so ‘luminito’ is a mash-up that they coined to kind of poke fun at the linguistic divide,” Zancanella says. “Rudolfo – being sort of the godfather of New Mexican literature – certainly puts his thumb on the scale for ‘farolitos.’ but there’s a lot of us down south here in Albuquerque who say ‘luminaria.’ So, maybe the literati are gonna say ‘farolitos,’ but the populace is gonna call it a luminaria.”
Zancanella says they pulled out all the stops for this production and offer “the best of the best”
that the opera scene has to offer: a great cast and a fantastic chorus of about 24 voices accompanied by big, lush orchestral melodies. Opera Southwest Artistic Director Anthony Barrese will be conducting the production, and the staging is done by John de los Santos, who Zancanella says is “one of the more brilliant choreographers and stage directors” Opera Southwest has worked with.
“The music is really gorgeous, and it’s something that I hope people of all ages would appreciate,” Zancanella says. “But it’s certainly a serious aesthetic work that appeals to adults as well, and so that’s what we’re hoping to achieve, and it’s what I’ve seen so far just a couple days away from opening here. I hope that the public agrees.”
The Composer
The Farolitos of Christmas composer and librettist Hector Armienta leads a company called Opera Cultura based in San Jose, California and says he’s devoted his life to telling the stories of his community through the power of opera. He also knew Anaya personally and has adapted his work for opera in the past. His first project here was Bless Me, Ultima, which Opera Southwest commissioned almost 10 years ago.
“I was very fortunate at that time, because Mr. Anaya was still alive. I consulted with him on the development of the story and the synopsis and all of that. And then he allowed me to work on the libretto. I got a chance to meet with him four or five times, and I’ve known his family very well. In fact, I just had lunch with his sister Dolores. So that was my first experience in New Mexico and understanding the New Mexican culture is quite distinct. It has its own music and its own specific cultural heritage. And that took me a while to better understand,” Armienta says.
He says there is a specific musical style that is unique to New Mexico – sort of a “corrido style” of writing. He says although New Mexico is obviously separate from Mexico, there are musical traditions that exist between the two.
“I write in the European neo-romantic style, which is very much like Verdi and Puccini. So the vase, or the container, is European-centric, but the content is truly the Latino music of New Mexico,” Armienta says.
Armienta says Anaya was in his 70s when he last worked with him. At that time, he had some physical disabilities, but his mind was sharp and his sense of humor was very witty. Every morning he would wake up and write.
“When I flew out to meet with him, sometimes we’d start with a little bit of wine – or he had his own particular kind of tequila. He has this beautiful house up on the hill. And his daughter, Belinda, who I’ve known for a while, would come with his niece sometimes and bring food and we would break bread together. I think you can count on one hand the people who have touched your life in a special way. And he was one of those people because of his unique ability to communicate through his work and his passion for telling Mexican-American stories.”
When Armienta started writing Bless me, Ultima and Zorro, people asked him, “Why do you write in both Spanish and English?” His answer: “Because it reflects who I am.” He says that was also very true of Anaya. During a cast party for Bless Me, Ultima, a performer told Armienta that getting to sing an opera written in both languages validated who they were as an artist, and he hopes the same thing will happen at the NHCC this Christmas.
The Cast
The Faralitos of Christmas features Mary Burke Barber as Reina, Christina Martos as Belinda, Cristina Sanchez as Dolores, Carlos Archuleta as Abuelo and Angel Vargas as Papa. One of the brightest stars of the show is sure to be Ash Hurtado in the role of Luz.
Hurtado has done theater and singing pretty much all of their life, and both of their parents are singers. (They met during a production of the Naughty Marietta as dance partners.) Hurtado started off as a musical theater major, and then realized opera was also in the stars, so to speak.
“I still do musical theater but I do opera a little more. I love both. My musical theater helps my opera. My opera helps my musical theater,” Hurtado says “I’ve had voice lessons since I was six, and then I got my undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I went to grad school to get my masters from the Peabody Conservatory of The Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore,”
Hurtado says they met Hector Armienta about three and a half years ago when they played the role of Antonio in Opera Cultura’s Bless Me, Ultima. They love the book, and it might just be their favorite opera they’ve had the pleasure of singing in.
“Antonio is such a great character with such an interesting arc, and it’s a beautiful story. I think that Hector is maybe the best composer at bringing human emotion to life, and that’s my favorite thing to do as a performer, so that was really special for me. Opera Cultura did La Llorona, and I got to be Sara who is La llorona’s daughter, which is also super meaningful,” Hurtado says.
“I’m really grateful that I was asked to come do this, because I love Rudolfo Anaya’s stories and Hector Armienta’s music, and also New Mexico and all the people here. Hector chooses to have these child roles, but they have so much emotional depth, which is really fun for me,” Hurtado says. “I have fun playing kids on stage because of the energy that they get to have – more freedom than a lot of adult characters. But sometimes in shows, they are a little flatter emotionally, and I have to build that up myself. But with the Anaya and Armienta team, the characters are already so rich emotionally. And, of course, I build on that as well.”
Hurtado can relate to Luz in a lot of ways, especially how important holiday family traditions feel to her. Hurtado’s Christmas mirrors Luz’s in many ways, especially since they both miss their parents tremendously. Hurtado has a bunch of family coming to see them perform, including their parents. And then – weather and airplanes permitting – they will be going to Oak Park, Illinois for Christmas. Hurtado expects to see tears in their parents’ eyes during the emotional performance.
“When something is really important but out of my control, I really want to try and fix it. And I think that Luz really, really wants her father to come home safe from the war. It’s all she can think about, all she can feel, and it’s really hard that she can’t do anything. So, when her grandfather wants to make the luminarias to guide Papa home from the war, she’s like, ‘Okay, that’s something I can do.’ That’s something that she can put all of her thoughts and energy into, so that she’s not just wallowing in sadness and anxiety about her father being away.”
Hurtado says they really love the talented Farolitos of Christmas cast, and in a lot of ways, it feels like family when they work together, which will be a special thing for people to see play out on stage. Hurtado says the director told the singers a few times that he believes the group are all family. Hurtado says the cast isn’t just great actors, they genuinely like each other.
“I think that anybody who cares deeply about their family – whether that’s their birth family or a chosen family – and about being together for special moments can relate to this opera,” Hurtado says. “And I’ve said this a lot, but I’ll say it again: one of my very favorite things about performing in Hector’s operas is that he is writing for his community. It’s such a special feeling to perform for people who read the book when they were kids, or have read the book to their kids. People who have had farolitos down their streets. It’s really fulfilling for me to perform for those people seeing their own stories.”
The Farolitos of Christmas
National Hispanic Cultural Center
1701 Fourth St. SW
Dec. 12 (6:30 p.m.), 13 (2 and 6 p.m.) & 14 (4 p.m.)
Tickets: $65-$25