Cuenca hosts a masterpiece: Scenes from the opera

Story and photos by Bartley D’Alfonso

Musicologists agree: at any given moment there’s a live performance of an opera by the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart performed somewhere in the world.

It was Cuenca’s turn on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights. That was when performers took the stage at the University of Cuenca’s Carlos CuevaTamariz Theater to enact the Spanish language version of “La FlautaMágica”, or The Magic Flute.

Performed for the first time a mere three months before Mozart’s untimely death at only thirty-six years of age the opera is a classic fairy tale where the ubiquitous damsel-in-distress is rescued by the handsome prince.  Influenced by Freemasonry rituals and symbolism, it is the epic story of good versus evil; enlightenment versus ignorance; and a quest for wisdom filled with the virtues of knowledge, justice, and in seeking the truth.

These were interpreted last week under the skillful baton of Michael Meissner Jacob, Music Director of the Cuenca Symphony Orchestra. The music was skillfully complimented with the stage design and scenery created by Javier Andrade Córdova and his staff, including the forbidding forest props, enhanced with mystical fog.

These are the well-deserved reasons why the audience gave the cast members, performers and musicians a long and very enthusiastic standing ovation.