''Xochicuicatl cuecuechtli'' (''Ribald Flowersong'') is the first contemporary opera exclusively developed in Nahuatl language and accompanied by an orchestra of Native Mexican instruments. It was written between June, 2011 and January, 2013 by Mexican composer

Gabriel Pareyon Gabriel Pareyon (born October 23, 1974, Zapopan, Jalisco) is a polymathic Mexican composer and musicologist, who has published literature on topics of philosophy and semiotics. He has a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Helsinki, whe ...

, after more than a decade of literary, musical and linguistic research. Its text and poetical contents directly come from the homonymous poem, compiled by friar Bernardino de Sahagun amidst the 16th century, among

Nahua The Nahuas () are a group of the indigenous people of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. They comprise the largest indigenous group in Mexico and second largest in El Salvador. The Mexica (Aztecs) were of Nahua ethnicity, a ...

informants that survived the

Conquest of the Aztec Empire The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, also known as the Conquest of Mexico or the Spanish-Aztec War (1519–21), was one of the primary events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas. There are multiple 16th-century narratives of the ev ...

. This original text is comprised within the collection of

Aztec The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl ...

songs known under the title of '' Cantares Mexicanos'' or Mexicacuicatl. Premiered in August, 2014, in Arcelia,

Guerrero Guerrero is one of the 32 states that comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided in 81 municipalities and its capital city is Chilpancingo and its largest city is Acapulcocopied from article, GuerreroAs of 2020, Guerrero the pop ...

, under the guidance of music and stage director Jose Navarro-Noriega, the piece's plot originates from a reinterpretation proposed by historian and linguist Patrick Johansson, on the erotic sense of the concept ''cuecuechcuicatl'' (playful ribald) and the expressive whole that it embodies: song, poetry, music and dance, where sexuality is rather a source for philosophical-existential depth.

Innovation

The piece offers a carefully analyzed vision of the Nahua universe without pursuing an archaeological reconstruction or attempting a folklore piece. It proposes a distinct operatic structure that brings new ways to relate the arts, scenically and methodologically, different to the European tradition. The orchestra is formed exclusively by ancestral original Mexican instruments (mainly percussions such as huehuetl and teponaztli, but also a wide gamut of Native Mexican aerophones), for which a score with an original notation distinct from the pentagram signature style, has been created based on symbols of the ancient iconography of Mexico. ''Xochicuicatl cuecuechtli'' proposes a treatment of the voice, based in the articulation and dramatization of each word in Nahuatl, totally different to Western traditional vocalization. The expressiveness involved does not allow any artistic discipline to overtake another, allowing poetry, dance and music to compose a symbolic whole.

Plot and structure

The symbolic complexity of this ''cuecuechcuicatl'' (operatic genre of the Mexican erotic-philosophical tradition), evidences the existentialist conception of sexuality in the Aztec universe as a "return" to death. The initial sound of a conch (''Lobatus gigas'') refers to the myth of human gestation in the

underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underwor ...

, where the breath of Quetzalcoatl penetrates the conch (a female symbol) and the product of sound enters in its turn on heard of the divinity of death ( Mictlantecuhtli), fertilizing it. Then the demiurge Quetzalcoatl adopts the shape of a Cuicamatini (Master Singer, a bearer of wisdom), who teaches music (cuicatl) to three young women (the Ahwahnees) which in turn learn the art of preparing food from

maize Maize ( ; ''Zea mays'' subsp. ''mays'', from es, maíz after tnq, mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The ...

. The world of the ahuaianis is disturbed by the arrival of a stranger: the Tohuenyo, a

Huastec Huastec can refer to either: *Huastec people, an indigenous group of Mexico *Huastec language (also called "Wasteko" and "Teenek"), spoken by the Huastec people * Huastec civilization The Huastec civilization (sometimes spelled Huaxtec or Wastek ...

, agile and attractive young man that seduces the three luscious girls. After a lustful play, with a climatic dance (''mitotl''), finally the ahuaianis leave the Tohuenyo, who discovers his destiny as loneliness and darkness. The plot changes when the patron of blossoms, colour, poetry and music, Xochipilli, suddenly appears in an

epiphany Epiphany may refer to: * Epiphany (feeling), an experience of sudden and striking insight Religion * Epiphany (holiday), a Christian holiday celebrating the revelation of God the Son as a human being in Jesus Christ ** Epiphany season, or Epiph ...

, bringing a present for the Tohuenyo: an ocarina (a ''huilacapiztli'', symbol of sex and death), referring to the ephemeral nature of the sexual act and the human existence. In short, the work refers to the sexual act as an analogy of life, intense and brief, spirited and fleeting. The show consists of 28 scenic frames, with 6 characters performed by 5 performers (dancers that follow their own score, in addition to lyrics and special vocalization also performed by them), and 20 musicians on stage playing during an hour.

Awards

''Xochicuicatl cuecuechtli'' received a Special Mention at the Music Theatre NOW festival as a 2015 Winning Selection by the International Theatre Institute in cooperation with the German Centre of ITI.

References

{{Reflist ''Opera explores sexuality of Mexico's Nahuatl culture'

Operas Nahuatl literature 2011 operas Operas set in Mexico Operas set in the 16th century Aztecs in fiction