Border Report: Reimagining a Choral Masterpiece for the San Diego-Tijuana Region

The U.S.-Mexico border might seem an unlikely setting for a ground-breaking performance of “Messiah,”  the 18th century choral masterpiece by George Frideric Handel. Yet for the founder and artistic director of Bach Collegium San Diego, there is no better place to realize his vision: singing the famed oratorio entirely in Spanish.

“I think it will resonate deeply with this region,” Ruben Valenzuela told me last week. We were sitting together on a bench in Point Loma, outside All Souls Episcopal Church, where he works as music director. The church also serves as a base for the Bach Collegium, a group dedicated to historically informed performances of music from the Renaissance, Baroque and early Classical eras.

Valenzuela has invited musicians from across the United States for three performances of “El Mesías” this month – on March 18 and 19 in San Diego County, and on March 20 in Tijuana – that are being billed as world premieres. Though parts of “Messiah,” originally written in English, have  been translated and sung in Spanish, Valenzuela said this marks the first time the entire two-hour piece will be presented in Spanish.

“This is a perfect opportunity to take an iconic masterpiece, and literally tailor it to this community,” Valenzuela said. The community he’s aiming to reach is the Spanish-speaking public on both sides of the border. 

The result of nearly two years of collaboration between Valenzuela and a Tijuana-based librettist, the project highlights not just the opportunities for cross-border collaboration – but also the pool of classical musical talent and projects in Tijuana.

For Valenzuela, it’s also a tribute to his own Mexican origins. He was raised in Los Angeles in a Spanish-speaking household, the oldest son of a musician who performed in Mexican trio ensembles. Valenzuela, who holds a doctorate in musicology from Claremont Graduate University, said his first exposure to the oratorio was listening to excerpts in Spanish when he was a boy attending Central Spanish Seventh Day Adventist Church. 

“I heard this and I thought, ‘oh my gosh, that is incredible music’,” he recalled.

The border often seems like a barrier that splits communities on either side. But in this case it has served as a bridge. When Valenzuela set out to find someone who could  write a Spanish-language libretto, an advisory board member of Bach Collegium with connections in Tijuana’s classical music community told him he knew just the right person:  Mario Montenegro, a musical scholar, creator of a vocal ensemble, and owner of a cafe in the city’s Rio Zone. 

I’ve known Montenegro for years – he’s an eloquent voice in Tijuana’s classical music world, and a mentor both to accomplished and less experienced singers. For the past 10 years, he worked as artistic director of the seven-member Ensamble Vocal Cecut  at Tijuana’s federal Cultural Center. 

Montenegro is a law school graduate with a master’s degree in architecture. But he’s been  listening to opera since his boyhood on a ranch in the Mexican state of Durango. He has published research, produced radio programs and taught classes on the subject. He recently was the librettist for a Spanish-langage version of Puccini’s opera “La Boheme.” 

Tijuana’s weekday traffic rushed by outside one afternoon last week when I met with Montenegro at his Media Naranja cafe to talk about his latest project. “These are living works, they’re not museum pieces that have to be under lock and untouched,” Montenegro told me. 

“This is to offer Spanish-speakers a piece of music that has them in mind,” he said. “It’s an effort to take this universal masterpiece and offer it to them, both in San Diego and Tijuana. And this can be a bridge – in  communication, in culture, in art, in the beauty of the music.”

After “Messiah” was first performed in Dublin in 1742, Handel repeatedly modified his piece. Decades later, Mozart made an adaptation that added woodwinds and a German-language libretto based on Martin Luther’s 16th century translation of the Bible.

Setting down Spanish words to Handel’s composition presented its own challenges.

“We obviously couldn’t do a literal translation because of the syntax of the different languages,” said Valenzuela. “We want the spirit of the English, but in Spanish. So we had all these discussions about how he (Montenegro)  was going to approach the Spanish.”

To make sure the words could be properly sung, Montenegro turned to Javier Carillo, a baritone and musical director of the Cecut Vocal Ensemble, who suggested some small adjustments. “I’m astonished because the changes we had to make were minimal, to stress certain accents, or to make it sound more idiomatic in Spanish,” Montenegro said.

The ultimate test will come a few days from now, when chorus and orchestra members gather to rehearse and perform the piece. “It’s going to be a shock to hear ‘comfort ye my people’ come out as ‘consolad a mi pueblo’,” Valenzuela said. 

Valenzuela dreams of one day taking performances of “El Mesías” to cities across Mexico, even to Europe. But for now, he’s already warmed by the encouragement he’s finding close home – from his parents. “They’ve always been supportive of what I do, but I think they have a hard time relating to it, because they don’t live in that world,” he said. “But now that it’s in Spanish….they’re thrilled.”

Also of note

• Suspects in slaying of Tijuana photographer: Mexican authorities announced Monday that they have three suspects in custody in the Jan. 17 slaying of Margarito Martinez, a Tijuana photographer who covered crime. Authorities said they are members of a group of drug dealers operating in the Sanchez Taboada section of Tijuana, where Martinez lived. The suspects were among a group of ten people arrested last month in connection with the shooting, three of whom were later released. At a news conference Monday afternoon, Baja California’s Attorney General said the suspects targeted Martinez because they erroneously believed that Martinez was behind a series of news articles about their group’s illicit activities.The man who allegedly pulled the trigger went by the nickname “El Uber” and reportedly received 20,000 pesos – less than $1,000 – for committing the crime. (Zeta, AFN, San Diego Union-Tribune, Puntoinfo.com)

• Embezzlement charges against former Baja California officials: Baja California Gov. Marina del Pilar Avila’s government on March 5 announced that it has filed embezzlement charges against members of former Gov. Jaime Bonilla’s administration, accusing them of illegally authorizing construction of a massive solar energy plant in Mexicali. Bonilla announced the project last June as a public-private partnership.  But last month, Mexico’s federal energy agency turned down the project. (La Jornada, Zeta, Periodismo Negro)

• Russian billionaire’s yacht in Ensenada: A giant yacht named La Datcha and said to be owned by Russian billionaire Oleg Tinkov in recent days  has been spotted in  Ensenada’s harbor. Tinkov is founder of one of Russia’s largest banks.  Last October, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that he pleaded guilty to filing a false U.S. tax return and agreed to pay $507 million in taxes and fines. (Ensenada.net, Agencia Fronteriza de Noticias, Reuters)

• San Diegans move to Tijuana: Growing numbers of San Diego residents priced out of their city’s skyrocketing housing market are moving to Tijuana, KPBS News reports. And that is affecting residents of some upper-middle class neighborhoods in Tijuana who are now seeing their housing costs go up too.