Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Girl in the Clouds

If I had to choose one Villa-Lobos work to hear it would be this one: A Menina das Nuvens (Girl in the Clouds), the 1958 "Musical Adventure in Three Acts." This piece received high praise from Prof. Tarasti:
"It represents the concentrated late Villa-Lobos, with a harmonically and melodically innocently simple texture extraordinarily well suited to a fairy tale opera meant for children."
This work has never been recorded, and I know of only two performances. One was soon after Villa-Lobos's death, in 1960 in Rio de Janeiro. The other was at the Americas Society in New York in 1989, conducted by Alfred Heller. It's too bad Alfred didn't arrange for a recording of this performance - I wonder if by any chance there might be a bootleg recording out there.

It was great to hear, then (from Prof. Eduardo W. Dias) that a new production is being planned in Belo Horizonte in September 2009. Roberto Duarte will be conducting the Orquestra Sinfônica de Minas Gerais at the Palácio das Artes in Belo Horizonte. I hope that a recording might follow.

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