Tijuana is for Opera Lovers – article on Substack
It may be “elder Millennial” of me, but I like having a website.
I don’t like having to pay for it or maintain it…
but I like that there is a place on the Internet where my content belongs to me.
That said, I decided to experiment with starting a Substack.
I’ve only written one article about my recent trip to see opera in Tijuana.
I’m not sure if I’ll continue using that platform…
We’ll see whether it makes my articles any easier for others to find.
IN THE MEANTIME…
Here’s the full text of the article in this space that I own!
Tijuana is for (Opera) Lovers
In the early evening on July 12, I decided to cross the border to hear some opera.
I almost didn’t go. I was tired from schlepping percussion instruments for a community orchestra rehearsal. I didn’t want to mess with parking or transit on either side of the fence. But I love Tijuana, and I love opera, so I grabbed my passport and newly-minted Global Entry card, and I drove down to the Palm Avenue trolley station. I parked and took the trolley a few stops to the last station at San Ysidro, where I crossed into Tijuana and took a public taxi to the infamous Avenida Revolución.
I did not see many tourists – or even a single donkey painted to look like a zebra. It was all locals moving in packs to frequent the various bars and clubs with their neon lights and pulsing music, but I kept walking. I wasn’t here for that. It took me a minute to find the tiny numbers on the street signs, but I eventually figured out that if I kept walking south, I’d find the intersection of Revolución and Calle Once, the site of Tijuana’s annual Ópera en la Calle (Opera in the Streets) – a free outdoor public opera concert.
I got a little nervous a few blocks before I reached my destination. The crowds had thinned out, and there weren’t many people in the street. Was I even going the right way? I ducked into a store to ask for directions. Then I spotted three women and a man with a stroller who seemed to be headed in the same direction I was. I asked if they were going to Ópera en la Calle; they said yes and offered to walk with me. I helped them find a smooth path over the jagged sidewalks for their stroller; my percussion-schlepping experience finally had a practical application! We rounded a bend, and all of a sudden, I could hear the operatic voices. When we reached the end of the street, there was a stage with an enormous crowd before it.
I remember when I first heard of Ópera en la Calle, it was accompanied by a rather pointed aside: “You would NEVER see an event like that in San Diego!” Remembering this comment as I looked at the size of the crowd, I thought it was probably true. Besides – where would we even have such an event? Maybe in Balboa Park, but that hardly qualifies as “in the streets.” Farmer’s market spots in O.B. and Little Italy also come to mind, but the parking would be such a nightmare that it’s hard to imagine how a crowd the size of the one in Tijuana could ever materialize.
After enjoying a few arias and ballet sequences, I used a restroom at one of the nearby restaurants in exchange for purchasing an agua fresca. Then I bought a burrito from one of the many vendors in tents surrounding the event. The crowd sat in rows of white plastic chairs; I found an empty one and took a seat. The sound of the singers’ voices in their microphones was a little grating, since opera isn’t really meant to be amplified, but once I put my musician earplugs in, it was perfect. A woman to my right sold beer, her cries of “Cerveza!” ringing out in between the acts and adding to the festive atmosphere.
Twenty years ago, I was a music major at Northwestern University. My fellow music students and I knew that classical music lacked mass commercial appeal, but we loved it enough to devote our lives to our studies, hoping to reach that stratosphere of musicians who manage to make a living in classical performance. In our music history courses, we learned about the days when opera was entertainment for the masses; audiences ate dinner, played cards, faced away from the stage, and got into all kinds of personal intrigues at the opera house. In Tijuana, it was easy to imagine that opera remains a relevant form of popular entertainment – not just a museum relic for the very wealthy to enjoy.
The closest I’ve ever come to seeing an event like this in San Diego was a concert given by soprano Anishka Lee-Skorepa under her artistic name “Nishi La Tremenda.” She and her student Lia Adams performed with a band that included guitar, keyboard, bass, and drum set. They held the performance in a cul-de-sac in Banker’s Hill on the driveway of a family member. Audience members sat in the street in beach chairs. She even hired a food truck for the occasion. At one point, a neighbor needed to run an errand in her car, so we all picked up our chairs so she could drive away. It was the night before the alleged “hurricane” was supposed to hit San Diego, and the red sunset provided a gorgeous backdrop for the show. This may be the closest my city has ever gotten to a true “opera in the streets” performance, and it’s no surprise – Ms. Lee-Skorepa and Ms. Adams are both “artistas fronterizas” (border artists) who have worked extensively with the Tijuana Opera.
As I continued to munch on my burrito, I was delighted to see a performance from Bodhi Tree Concerts, a San Diego-based group whose work I had seen before at San Diego Fringe Festival in 2022. A standout performance came from Walter DuMelle, a bass whose comic stage antics played well to the large crowd. I felt proud to see a group from north of the border getting into the spirit of the evening.
As I finished my burrito, the preparations for the final event of the night began on stage. The announcers led the crowd in singing the Mexican birthday song, “Las Mañanitas,” in honor of Tijuana’s birthday on July 11. What a coincidence; I visited Tijuana for the first time in 2000 to perform in the city’s birthday parade with my high school marching band. I’m not sure when San Diego’s birthday is, but I doubt we’d celebrate it with outdoor opera; we’d probably just hang some lights on an aircraft carrier.
After a brief interlude featuring Chinese lion dancers, the last event of the evening began: Act II of La Boheme. I noticed among the singers on stage another face I recognized from the San Diego scene: Fabrizio Chollet in the role of Parpignol the clown. I’ve heard him perform as part of the “Sholet and Lulumir” duo at Voices of Poetry, a variety event produced by LaGlynn from New Village Arts Theater in Carlsbad. I missed their well-attended “Hip-Hopera” tour in February, but I saw their YouTube videos and begged LaGlynn to put me on a show with them in May. As hosts, Sholet and Lulumir began their set from the back of the venue, singing an opera duet as they made their way up to the stage, beguiling the audience. I appreciated Sholet and Lulumir bringing opera to an event focused on rap, poetry, and spoken word; their commitment to keeping it on equal footing with modern music again reflected the spirit of Ópera en la Calle.
When Act II of La Boheme came to a close, it was time to head back across the border. I felt disappointed that I hadn’t seen the dynamic conductor Daria Abreu, whose work with choral group Meraki I admired when I last attended Ópera en la Calle in 2023, but I was grateful to have enjoyed the work of one woman music director, Aiko Yamada. I found a taxi further down Avenida Revolución and had a pleasant conversation with the driver, who wanted to know why I wasn’t scared to come to Tijuana alone. He seemed satisfied when I told him I used to live in Brazil. I got out at the border and pulled out my Global Entry card, but there was no need – the line was practically nonexistent at that hour. I made it back across with plenty of time to catch the trolley back to my car.
Some folks say that “Lo bueno de Tijuana es San Diego.” (The good part of Tijuana is San Diego.) I would argue that the reverse is also true: The good part of San Diego – especially when we’re talking about accessible classical music performances with broad appeal – is Tijuana. I am grateful to Nishi la Tremenda, Lia Adams, Sholet, and Lulumir for gracing our San Diego stages with talent honed in Tijuana. I am grateful to Walter DuMelle and Bodhi Tree for showing that some of us north of the border can still get down. I am grateful to Daria Abreu, Aiko Yamada, and all of the conductors and music directors involved in this performance. May the border remain open to the free flow of music, ideas, and most of all – people.