Opera with a tequila twist

Xanadu? Nope. Close, but no cigarillo. Zandunga!

It’s Sunday in central Mexico. Altitude, 6,300 ft. A 30-minute drive through open scrubland from San Miguel de Allende, an unspoilt jewel town founded on 16th-century gold and silver, 160 miles north of Mexico City. 

Our party of two Americans and two Brits is searching for opera or music, in the middle of nowhere in Mexico. The SUV hangs a left into cactuses and a dirt road, arriving at an unspectacular hacienda hidden in the landscape’s folds. 

There appears a large open tin-roofed structure, kitted out to provide lunch and entertainment for about 100. Full house today. Full house every showtime day. Zandunga is a hot ticket event.

Xanadu was the distant summer palace of 13th-century Chinese Emperor, Kublai Khan. Zandunga is the passion project of Rebecca, our master/mistress of ceremonies. She is American, silver-haired, omnipresent, steeped in Mexico, married to topflight guitarist, Gil Gutierrez. 

The couple mounts regular sell-out events in their back of beyond oasis.

The food is excellent. But it is the quality of the traditional Mexican music that draws the crowds. Distanced tables are scattered in front of the stage, plates are stacked with food from a cornucopia buffet, conversation amongst the audience — clearly, many of whom are regulars — fades, and the performance begins.

The Mariachi band format — guitarist, trumpeter, violinist, double bass and drummer, all sing as well as play — may be in the tradition of the familiar tourist trap oompah players who wander from square to square, disturbing the Mexican peace. This ensemble comes from a different planet.

The music consists of foundation rhythmic melodies, interspersed with regular transition passages to instrumental cadenzas. Captivating Lyka Kaiumova, the guest Russian violinist, is top flight. Gutierrez, the guitarist, achieves the impossible. In his solo spots, he riffs on the high E and B strings. The rapid-fire sound is searing. 

Then, just when you think he is completely strung out, he slides his fingers up the fret, beyond the soundhole, all the way to the bridge, taking the sound to acoustic wavelengths audible only to bats, civets, and pangolins in Wuhan market. 

Hand over to Armando Servin, who performs the equivalent trick on his trumpet. Every note is penetratingly clean, on key and a universe away from the familiar, wobbly delivery of the town square.

No trip to San Miguel should be Zandunga free. The intensity of Mexico — passion, revolutionary zeal, colourful display — became comprehensible. Establishing the ambience for a first-time visitor. Moi. Great point of entry.

The audience was eclectic, almost universally ex-pat, mostly American. Ten per cent of San Miguel de Allende’s residents are ex-pats. The appetite for absorbing Mexican culture through the country’s music seemed voracious. Dancing was encouraged.

I’ve often wondered what became of the iconic rural American couple staring out of Frank Wood’s 1930 American Gothic. Surprising news. They are alive and well and were sitting at the table in front of me, Zandunga-ing.

Dentist, Dr Bryan McKeeby, had ditched his pitchfork and was sporting a cool potato sack waistcoat. Nan Wood Graham, Wood’s formidable sister, had certainly become more flower power. She had probably fashioned the waistcoat.

Here they were, still an unmistakable stereotype, 2,000 miles from home. Living testaments to Frank Woods’ observational powers. They left early. Perhaps to go back to Iowa. 

Back in town, Opera de San Miguel hosts a regular competition for rising Mexican stars. The Concurso is from 28th February until 4 March at the Angela Peralta theatre, named after and opened by the then Queen of Mexican opera. 

The last Concurso in 2020 featured a concert with eight finalists.

The repertoire was mostly conventional Mozart, Puccini, Wagner. Soprano, Fernanda Allande, sang the only aria by a Mexican composer. De mi Amor, from Keofar, by Felipe Villanueva. 

It is tantalisingly beautiful. Why is Villanueva unknown, Keofar never performed? Mexico has a strong tradition of excellent performance of the European repertoire but has neglected native talent and this potential opera gem. 

Felipe de Jesus Villanueva Gutiérrez — no relation of the Zandunga maestro — was a virtuoso violinist, pianist and composer who died at a tragically early age of 31 in 1893. Keofar’s libretto focused on events surrounding the death of Tsar Alexander II. 

Perhaps if Villanueva had got round to operas based on the multitude of heroic revolutionaries whose statues adorn almost every street corner of San Miguel, he would have been better remembered. 

Dip into extracts from Keofar on Soundcloud and discover a lyrical, mysterious world which Mexican musicians would do well to exploit. 

Join my campaign to mount Keofar at the spectacular Teatro Juarez in Guanajuato, 30 miles northwest of San Miguel. The theatre is spectacular, built-in 1873 at the whim of dictator Porfirio Díaz.

Guanajuato is a gold and silver town, established in 1548. Connected to San Miguel by the King’s Road, it provided a flow of riches to its Spanish conquerors and funded an empire. 

A UNESCO world heritage site, it is unspoilt. Crisscrossed by mysterious underground tunnels carved from ancient riverbeds. The sharply rising hills are festooned by brightly coloured houses. 

Tiled roofs blend with neighbours’ balconies in the hugger-mugger. Teatro Juarez boasts statues of the Nine Muses topping its façade. A careful examination revealed only eight. But perhaps number nine was off site for re-musing. Don’t quibble. 

That does not detract from the heroic eccentricity of the space. The wooden interior and lack of sound-deadening plush promises sharp acoustics. It was disappointing to discover that the local opera company seems to be mothballed; its website almost un-functioning, the links a tumbleweed of http://501 error messages.

A victim of Covid, it would be a tragedy if the venue became permanently dark to opera. Not quite on a par with Latin America’s other wacky opera house, The Amazon Theatre in Manaus, Brazil, it could still be a focal point for an international opera festival focused on my newfound obsession, Villanueva’s Keofar. Stranger things happened in Wexford in 1951.

Not least amongst the cultural jewels of San Miguel de Allende was the pop-up Burns Supper at which yours truly was called upon to address the haggis. 

Expectantly including tartan trews and waistcoat in my capsule travel-in-hope wardrobe proved an inspiration. Well, you never know when Scottishness can be an asset.

The haggis was, it must be said, a challenge. “Hurdies “were not distant hills, more a burger-sized foreground blob. Where was the pin “fit to mend a mill”? The “groaning trencher” was far from a solid silver salver, more a small glass plate on which it would have been difficult to cut up anything with “ready slight”, let alone the vegetarian invention secured to its surface by a bed of melted cheese. Quantum haggis.

What the hell! Mexico was doing its best. Our piper was spectacular. Rafael Gutiérrez – yup! Another one – is the only Mexican I have come across with a Glasgow accent. He picked it up attending the National Piping Centre in Glasgow. His proudest boast was an appearance at the Edinburgh Tattoo.

Apparently, variable Mexican atmospheric conditions and altitude could make life difficult. Not tonight. Rafael skirled his way around the nooks and crannies of the spectacular home of my friends hosting the event with gusto. 

When supper was served haggis blob affected modesty, arriving from the kitchen enrobed in cabbage leaves. It tasted very Mexican. There followed Scottish songs, a trivia quiz and a short version of Auld Lang Syne, all testifying to the universality of the Bard. Robbie with a Tequila Twist. A hoot.

And that is the point of a visit to Mexico. Full of surprises. Zandunga, the Fabrica La Aurora art gallery lodged in an old textile mill that had struggled on to 1991. The edgy restaurants springing up on every street. The vibrant churches with the most harrowing blood-stained statues I have ever seen. 

The Mummy Museum of Guanajuato. Yes, they dug up a graveyard, found the corpses, including a foetus, had been mummified, so dreamt up a spooky tourist attraction. 

The whole country is opera. On 16 September 1810, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, a self-ordained Roman Catholic priest, rang the bell of the parish church in Dolores, halfway between San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato. He called on the people assembled outside to revolt against the Spanish colonial government.

Things did not end well for Father Hidalgo, but he coined the rallying cry, “Viva Mexico!” I can see why it resonates today.