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OPERA

New comic opera celebrates Spanish woman’s botched Jesus restoration

An opera celebrating the story of an octogenarian artist whose attempt to restore a fresco of Christ went disastrously wrong has had its US workshop premier in Arizona.

Published: 23 May 2018 16:07 CEST
New comic opera celebrates Spanish woman's botched Jesus restoration
The poster for the opera. Photo: Paul Fowler

A full version of the opera was performed with an orchestra and full cast for the first time last week at the Arizona State University (ASU) ahead of what will be the World Premiere in Zaragoza in 2019.

The collaboration between librettist Andrew Flack and composer Paul Fowler has been five-and-a-half years in the making  and has the full backing of the now 86-year-old Cecilia Gimenez and the mayor in Borja.

It tells the story of how Giménez became an accidental celebrity in her home of Borja, near Zaragoza in August, 2014 and changed the fortunes of a town once crippled by the economic crisis.



The orginal work by Elias Garcia had deterioated before the botched restoration Photo: AFP

Her bodged restoration of an image of Christ with a crown of thorns became the butt of a million jokes on social media and has put the town firmly on the map, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors to the view it.

Originally called Ecce Homo – Behold the Man – the image quickly won the sobriquet “Ecce Mono” – Behold the Monkey – and was reproduced on T-shirts, souvenir mugs and wine labels.

Described as a tragicomedy, the opera delves into the tale of how a devout woman with her good intentions and amateur brushstrokes transformed the mural from the serene original by Elías García Martínez into something resembling a hairy monkey with a smudge for a mouth.

The work explores how the 'Monkey Jesus' became an overnight internet sensation and how Giménez, initially, vilified and ridiculed, was transformed into the saviour of the town

Flack and Fowler teamed up with Brian DeMaris, director of the opera/musical theatre program at ASU to run the workshop which culminated in two live performances of “Behold the Man”.

Watch the trailer for the opera:

“The primary focus (goal) of the experience was to allow Paul and me to hear the opera for the first time with a full orchestra. Up to this point, we’d heard the material only in concert settings, with singers and piano,” explained Flack.

A concert in the town of Borja in 2016 was one of three such experiences.

“Well, with the orchestra it was a revelation! A total and utter success thanks to 16 incredible musicians (drawn from the local professional ranks, along with a few graduate students) a cast of nine principal singers (mostly grad students and ASU alums) and a chorus of 12 (mostly current undergrads),” said a proud Flack.


The finale performed at ASU. Photo: Andrew Flack

“The week itself was like a kind of “opera boot camp.” Sixteen hour days of setting up and rehearsing. The singers had a total of ten days of rehearsal, and the orchestra four days to put it all together. And they did. How, I don’t know, given that we’re talking about 2+ hours of music…but they did, and beautifully so, too.”

The team hopes to take the opera to New York but will stage a World Premiere in Zaragoza next year to which they hope Giménez will be able to attend.

“She is doing well for 87, living comfortably in Borja within the city's retirement community,” said Flack, who has travelled to Spain on numerous occasions while developing the opera to get to know the artist herself.

“She is such a lovely woman and is delighted with the opera,” he told The Local.


The artist Cecila Giménez and the writer Andrew Flack in Borja in 2017. Photo: Andrew Flack.

ART

African-born director’s new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

One of the rare African-born figures to head a German cultural institution, Bonaventure Ndikung is aiming to highlight post-colonial multiculturalism at a Berlin arts centre with its roots in Western hegemony.

Published: 8 July 2023 10:13 CEST
African-born director's new vision for Berlin cultural magnet

The “Haus der Kulturen der Welt” (House of World Cultures), or HKW, was built by the Americans in 1956 during the Cold War for propaganda purposes, at a time when Germany was still divided.

New director Ndikung said it had been located “strategically” so that people on the other side of the Berlin Wall, in the then-communist East, could see it.

This was “representing freedom” but “from the Western perspective”, the 46-year-old told AFP.

Now Ndikung, born in Cameroon before coming to study in Germany 26 years ago, wants to transform it into a place filled with “different cultures of the world”.

The centre, by the river Spree, is known locally as the “pregnant oyster” due to its sweeping, curved roof. It does not have its own collections but is home to exhibition rooms and a 1,000-seat auditorium.

It reopened in June after renovations, and Ndikung’s first project “Quilombismo” fits in with his aims of expanding the centre’s offerings.

The exhibition takes its name from the Brazilian term “Quilombo”, referring to the communities formed in the 17th century by African slaves, who fled to remote parts of the South American country.

Throughout the summer, there will also be performances, concerts, films, discussions and an exhibition of contemporary art from post-colonial societies across Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania.

‘Rethink the space’

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung said.

And part of the “Quilombismo” exhibition can be found glued to the floor -African braids laced together, a symbol of liberation for black people, which was created by Zimbabwean artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti.

According to Ndikung, African slaves on plantations sometimes plaited their hair in certain ways as a kind of coded message to those seeking to escape, showing them which direction to head.

READ ALSO: Germany hands back looted artefacts to Nigeria

His quest for aestheticism is reflected in his appearance: with a colourful suit and headgear, as well as huge rings on his fingers, he rarely goes unnoticed.

During his interview with AFP, Ndikung was wearing a green scarf and cap, a blue-ish jacket and big, sky-blue shoes.

With a doctorate in medical biology, he used to work as an engineer before devoting himself to art.

In 2010, he founded the Savvy Gallery in Berlin, bringing together art from the West and elsewhere, and in 2017 was one of the curators of Documenta, a prestigious contemporary art event in the German city of Kassel.

Convinced of the belief that history “has been written by a particular type of people, mostly white and men,” Ndikung has had all the rooms in the HKW renamed after women.

These are figures who have “done something important in the advancement of the world” but were “erased” from history, he added. Among them is Frenchwoman Paulette Nardal, born in Martinique in 1896.

She helped inspire the creation of the “negritude” movement, which aimed to develop black literary consciousness, and was the first black woman to study at the Sorbonne in Paris.

Reassessing history

Ndikung’s appointment at the HKW comes as awareness grows in Germany about its colonial past, which has long been overshadowed by the atrocities committed during the era of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis.

Berlin has in recent years started returning looted objects to African countries which it occupied in the early 20th century — Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Namibia and Cameroon.

“It’s long overdue,” said Ndikung.

He was born in Cameroon’s capital, Yaounde, into an anglophone family.

The country is majority francophone but also home to an anglophone minority and has faced deadly unrest in English-speaking areas, where armed insurgents are fighting to establish an independent homeland.

One of his dreams is to open a museum in Cameroon “bringing together historical and contemporary objects” from different countries, he said.

He would love to locate it in Bamenda, the capital of Cameroon’s restive Northwest region.

“But there is a war in Bamenda, so I can’t,” he says.

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