Zavala-Zavala
Imagine you are fleeing violence in your country. In the middle of your first night in the country where you seek safe haven, agents in uniforms snatch your child and won’t give him back. Then you are arrested and put into an orange jumpsuit. You face deportation for incorrectly entering the country at the wrong place, a crime normally considered a misdemeanor.
In real life, Navidad Zavala-Zavala, a Honduran grandmother who had been raising her seven-year-old grandson, faced this situation. In 2017, hers was the first family separation case in El Paso, Texas, testing Trump’s Zero Tolerance directives.
The initial spark for Zavala-Zavala: an opera in V cuts came in 2017 from Brian Arreola, father of two young children. He was moved deeply by what was happening at the United States southern border. Working with librettist Anna Deeny Morales, he completed Zavala-Zavala, his first opera, in 2022. The work was developed and premiered by the IN Series at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. The production was supported by a Faculty Research Grant from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, where Arreola is Professor of Voice and Opera Workshop.
On June 23, 2024, the Dresser saw Zavala-Zavala, an hour-long chamber opera, in its second production as presented by Gala Hispanic Theatre under the direction of Corinne Hayes.
Arreola’s collaboration with poet and librettist Anna Deeny Morales was an inspired arrangement. Her talent as a poet shines through Navidad’s heartrending story which is told in V cuts—or five wrenching scenes—in both Spanish and English.
She
tells the boy
of how the gods made
mist
and light,
the jaguar night,
palms and waves,
the continent bends,
hills of trees,
jungles, leaves,
animals, insects,
and all that is free . . .
and
then . . .
and then . . .
Deeny Morales, who teaches at Georgetown University’s Center for Latin American Studies, is an accomplished artist with substantial networks. Her operas have been funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Georgetown Americas Institute, and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Zavala-Zavala was supported by the Ford Foundation. Her opera Las Místicas de México about the more than 110,000 disappeared in Mexico was a collaboration with the IN Series artistic director Timothy Nelson (among others).
Arreola’s music is accessible and tuneful. The ten-piece, on-stage orchestra, under the baton of the composer, provided a satisfying net of sound that both supported and accented the richly nuanced voices of the outstanding singers. Baritone Efraín Solís featured in the role of Sergio Garcia, the lawyer representing Navidad Zavala-Zavala, also sang the parts of narrator and judge. His role switching was as seamless as his acting was confident. Mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Mondragón (as Navidad Zavala-Zavala) sang with authority and confidence that one would hope for in a woman who has made such an arduous journey and who needs to assure a young child that her love and her embrace will protect him. Perhaps the hardest role to deliver was that of prosecuting attorney Sara Morales as sung by soprano Judy Yannini. The challenge was to reduce the stridency of her job against the upper range of her voice. Sara’s duet with Sergio asking her to think about her children as the Thanksgiving holiday approached helped moderate the fierce person the job required her to be. Boy soprano Abraham Latner as the Niño (grandson of Navidad) capped off the stellar performances as he sang heartbreakingly (in Spanish) about the hummingbird that he asks to carry his message of love to his family, that they should not forget him.
The original production at the Kennedy Center featured an 18-piece orchestra. The Gala Hispanic Theatre production had six fewer strings, no flute, and no percussionist, and included piano, harp, oboe, bass clarinet, bassoon, and French horn. The sound seemed robust and full to this reviewer, without covering the voices.
The Gala Hispanic Theatre production had three performances. The last was filmed and was attended by members of the Zavala-Zavala family. Navidad’s grandson was reunited with his mother, but Navidad remains deported. The creators hope to circulate the new film footage to educate citizens of the United States about the cruelty of separating children from their families.
Photos by Camilo Montoya
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