Oscar Edelstein - Opera

Opera

Many of Edelstein's works are grounded in the field of "the extended theatre of music", where he stresses a focus on voice, speech production and the interplay with technology. Often he works with non-classically trained singers and choirs, training them to develop a specific sound colour. He has a "guest choir" of voices that will often appear in his compositions. He prefers to describe his works as acoustic theatre, feeling that the word opera both does not fit many of his works that use electro acoustics and not the traditional orchestra. In 2006, C.E.T.C., the experimental wing of Buenos Aires' opera house, Teatro Colón, commissioned and produced his opera Eterna Flotación-Los monstruito. As often is the case in his works, the libretto was written by Edelstein, this time adapting poems from Lo Dado by Rodolfo Enrique Fogwill. The Clarín reviewed it as "Original, innovative – some pieces are like from the anthology of opera." It was the first musical work to speak about the presidency of Carlos Menem. In the middle of scenes depicting the incredible decadence that Argentina fell into, Edelstein has a murga – a street-musical group common in Uruguay and Argentina often present at political protests – erupt into the theatre, cutting across conventional lines of opera as a "high" art. The final aria of the work is Edelstein's setting of "El Rio," a poem by Juan L. Ortiz, that he uses to make a contrast with the scenes of decadence and decay.