The couple stars in Leonard Bernstein's chamber opera, which has its final two performances this weekend. 

 

The final two performances of Trouble in Tahiti , featuring the main couple Sam and Dinah, will take place this Saturday, January 25, and Sunday, January 26, at 7:30 p.m. in the Chamber Hall of the Auditorio de Tenerife. This chamber opera, produced in-house, is composed by Leonard Bernstein, known for *West Side Story*.

Tickets for this entertaining show, which combines jazz music with irony, are available for €20. There is a discounted price of €10 for people under 30, along with various other discounts.

In this 45-minute opera, a young middle-class married couple in the 1950s grapples with a relationship crisis despite seemingly living the American dream. Rather than addressing their issues directly, they immerse themselves in the consumer-driven materialism typical of the era. A jazz trio, playing in an ironic tone, acts as a Greek chorus to convey this story.

This one-act opera in seven scenes, premièred 1952 in Massachusetts, is part of Bernstein's repertoire, a figure who was one of America's first conductors and well-known for his educational televised concerts. This in-house production by the Auditorio de Tenerife, which was released around this time last year, involves a predominantly local artistic team, with the musical side led by the Tenerife composer and orchestra conductor Francis Hernández and the staging by Siscu Ruz, a Catalan theatre director based in Lanzarote.

The team is completed by the stage designer Carlos Santos from Gran Canaria, who has come up with a white design that creates unity between the stage and the rest of the hall; the costume design is by Leo Martínez from Tenerife, who has taken inspiration from the period dress while adding a futuristic touch; and the lighting is by Ibán Negrín, also from the island, who will surprise the crowd with the atmosphere of the aria Island Magic.

The stage director's approach includes unifying the hall with white, offering a nod to the typical white houses of American residential developments in the storyline. Also, he wanted to add the colour orange to allude "to the symbolism of Mr or Ms Right (known as media naranja, 'half orange', in Spanish), which is so often used to refer to the endless pursuit of true love, which can only be found, allegedly, through the union of two incomplete parts. Has society forgotten that we are already full of oranges?”.

The cast is headed up by the mezzo-soprano Blanca Valido from Gran Canaria, who plays Dinah, and the Mexican baritone Omar Lara, who plays her husband, Sam. The cast is completed by the members of the trio who accompany the lead characters in the narration: Tenerife soprano Candelaria González, Basque tenor Aitor Garitano, and Lanzarote baritone Borja Molina.

Francis Hernández will conduct the Ensemble Ópera de Tenerife, an orchestral ensemble made up of fourteen musicians: Satomi Morimoto (piano), Sara Cabrera (flute), Desirée González (oboe/English horn), Diego Jorge Rodríguez (clarinet), Alberto Díaz (bassoon), Marianne Melián (horn), Aitor Acosta (trumpet), Cristo R. Delgado (trombone), Nelson Hernández (percussion), Juan Manuel Díaz (violin I), Carmen Vázquez (violin II), Alba Gorrea (viola), Diego Pérez (cello) and Juan Carlos Baeza (double bass).

The Auditorio de Tenerife will stage a shortened version by Garth Edwin Sunderland. The four performances offered count with the authorisation of Boosey & Hawkes Music Publishers Limited.

The Ópera de Tenerife is an initiative organised by the Island Council through the Auditorio de Tenerife with the collaboration of the ICDC (Regional Institute of Cultural Development) and the INAEM (National Institute of Performing Arts and Music).

The tickets are available on the website www.auditoriodetenerife.com, at the auditorium's box office or by dialling the phone number 902 317 327 from Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Check the special discounts for, among others, students, unemployed people and large families.