In addition to traveling the globe with her 30-member dance company, Brazilian choreographer Deborah Colker has developed works for the circus and the Olympic games alike. She directed her first opera, Ainadamar (Osvaldo Golijov, composer; David Henry Hwang, librettist) in 2022 at the Scottish Opera, and the production premiered at the Metropolitan Opera in October 2024.
My father was a violinist. When I was young, he would bring me to the Municipal Theater in Rio to see operas and symphony orchestras and other classical performances. I don’t remember my first opera — it was 40 years ago! — but I do remember a Tosca and that I loved it. When I was 10, I participated in my first opera, also Tosca, as one of the children in the chorus.
Years later, in 2022, I worked with the Scottish Opera on Ainadamar, and we had auditions in New York City, where I saw The Hours (Kevin Puts, composer; Greg Pierce, libretto) and other operas for the first time. I love good music, and I love new music: I love Osvaldo Golijov and Gabriela Lena Frank.
For Ainadamar, I am both director and choreographer. This opera is special — Golijov’s score is a fusion of classical and Spanish rhythms, and the music really moves. And you know, I’ve choreographed acrobats at Cirque du Soleil and the Rio Olympic Games, working with volunteers, actors, singers, and dancers. But with opera singers, it is different. Their focus is their voice, and some singers are a little scared to move or to do things that can change the position of their voice. They want to see the conductor. They want to keep their voices and their mouths pointed forward to the audience, and I want them to move and turn and go up and down — I must convince them that this will not hurt their projection, because when you sing, your body and voice work together. It’s organic. It’s about telling a story.
And the audience needs to follow and understand this story. The singers must act with expressivity as the story is told through the music, using their voices and body movements together to help create the scenes and the story, and then with the orchestra to fill out the music. That is opera.
