Though little known to outsiders, Basque composer Jesús Guridi (1886-1961) is as much beloved in Spain as in his homeland.
He is a nationalist composer in the same deep sense as Vaughan Williams (
https://rutr.life/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4921496 ) was in England, rooted in folk idioms, a generous melodist, approachable but never chauvinistic, above all imbued with a strong sense of the spiritual.
His best known works are the zarzuela "El caserío" (The Homestead
https://rutr.life/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4786861 ).
Some of his songs, piano and organ pieces also reside on the fringe of the international repertoire.
Guridi was a conservative composer whose music often sounds closer to Dvorak or his French teachers than to Spanish contemporaries such as Falla (
https://rutr.life/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4897497 ) or Sorozábal.
"Amaya", his operatic magnum opus was written between 1910 and 1920 on themes from 6th-century Basque history.
The libretto dramatises the struggle for supremacy between the old Pagan and new Christian leadership in a time when Vasconia was under threat from the Moorish hordes, and sorely in need of strong, unified leadership.
This conflict is echoed in the rivalry between two suitors - Good Christian Tenor Teodosio and Bad Pagan Bass Asier - for the hand of Princess Amaya.
Guridi's craftsmanship is never in doubt; his orchestration, notably well executed by the Bilbao Orchestra, is of copybook clarity; but his best music has an uplifting, poetic sensitivity which finds too few outlets in this doom-laden, dark age myth.
The lunar Pagan Rites, the surging rhythmic vitality of the Espatadantza (sword-dance) at the Wedding Feast, and the sweet but not sugary Redemption music in the Epilogue are points of light in the general gloom.
His vocal writing - in so far as a non-Basque speaker can judge these things - sounds fluid and natural, but memorable moments are rare.
The delicate poise of the heroine's scena before her wedding in Act 2, and Teodosio's touching narration towards the end of the opera stand out as exceptions.
It may be difficult for a non-Basque to fully appreciate "Amaya" in other ways, too.
Like Smetana's masterly "Libuse", an opera which it resembles in several ways (
https://rutr.life/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4915084 ), its mythic subject matter and tableauesque nationalism lend Amaya an extra-musical significance which foreigners cannot easily comprehend. Guridi laboured hard at the opera.
During the course of its long genesis his musical personality matured considerably, but even as late as 1920 his reliance on Wagnerian methods and material make parts of "Amaya" sound imitative rather than individual.
It adds to Guridi's difficulties that the libretto is clumsily structured, its focus ill-defined.
Who is at the centre of "Amaya"?
Not the heroine, a piece of dramatic furniture throughout.
Her husband Teodosio, an Orestes who undergoes a Tannhäuser-like redemption, is more complex; the most striking dramatic event is the death-rock repentance of the pagan villain of the piece, Asier.
Paradoxically, the introduction of an offstage narrative chorus in the Epilogue brings more telling musical results than the onstage characters ever manage.
This lack of dramatic cogency and momentum mitigates against an undeniably absorbing and well-crafted score.
The Marco Polo performance is accomplished, with Rosendo Flores especially good as the mendacious Asier.
Rebecca Copley is a clean-voiced Amaya, César Hernández a gritty but acceptable Teodosio.
The other roles are strongly taken, and the studio recording made during a run of performances at the Bilbao's Teatro Arriaga in June 1998 is exemplary.
Guridi admirers will respond to Amaya's moments of dark beauty, as well as the sweetness and light of the Epilogue.
Opera lovers should take the plunge with his great zarzuela "El caserío".
