The Human Toll of Border Politics: Nicolás Lell Benavides’ ‘Tres Minutos’
Now that the President-elect has vowed to begin deporting millions of undocumented U. S. residents immediately upon his inauguration, what could be more timely than composer Nicolás Lell Benavides’ chamber opera Tres Minutos? On Friday, the San Diego Symphony presented this 2022 opera as well as a string quartet by Nicolás Lell Benavides at the Jacobs Music Center.
Nicolás Lell Benavides conducts, Vanessa Isiguen & José Rubio [Photo by Jenna Gilmer]
Tres Minutos describes the anguish of a brother and sister whose close relationship is undermined when the brother Diego is deported to Mexico by the U.S. Border Patrol. In a less politically fraught time some twenty years earlier, when Diego was only three years old, his mother brought him into the U.S. from their native Mexico. She raised him in the U.S. along with his younger sister Nila, who was born after Diego and his mother settled here. When Michael, a U.S. Border Patrol agent, pulls the adult Diego over in a random traffic stop, the agent discovers Diego’s lack of documentation and immediately begins the process of deporting him.
The opera opens with a phone call between Nila and Diego—they are on their cell phones of course—in which Nila proposes to meet Diego at the international border for a reunion. The ‘three minutes’ of the chamber opera’s title is the precise amount of time U.S. policy allows a scheduled and supervised in-person visit at the border for individuals caught in the citizenship dilemma of Nila and Diego.
Benavides writes eloquently for the voice, and Vanessa Isiguen’s radiant soprano displayed the strength of a dramatic soprano combined with the warmth of a spinto as she imbued the composer’s beautifully arched phrases with the unshakable optimism of a bright, successful college student. She promises Diego that when she finishes college, she will attend law school and become the brilliant lawyer who will bring her brother back to the U.S.
Baritone José Rubio employed his strong, resonant voice and fierce conviction to convey the fury of his exile to a country and culture that is not his own. When the Border Agent apprehends Diego, he shouts at him, “Illegal alien, go home!” But, of course, the only home Diego knows is the U.S., where his mother raised him.
When Diego and Nila finally have their three-minute encounter, on the large screen above them, the minutes and seconds allotted to their encounter track the time in a cruel countdown. The siblings embrace wildly, but what can be communicated in the fleeting rush of 180 seconds?
In a short aside prior to the siblings’ three-minute meeting, Benavides and his librettist Marella Martin Koch shape a musical snapshot of Border Agent Michael, sung with apt brio by tenor Brendan Tuohy. Accompanying this portrait of Michael’s contented home life where he and his spouse raise two daughters, the composer shifts from his edgy, postmodern harmonic textures that have characterized the separated siblings Diego and Nila to a bouncy, contemporary pop music style that underscores Michael’s smarmy self-satisfaction. This characterization is, perhaps, a bit heavy handed compared to the librettist’s more nuanced treatment of the siblings’ predicament. Is it not possible that Border Agents have at least some misgivings about the havoc they wreak?
A string quartet plus piano and clarinet make up the ensemble Benavides uses to support his singers, providing a sufficiently rich combination of timbres to give muscle to his dissonant clashes that portray opera’s dramatic highs, yet provides sonic depth to the score’s moments of darker rumination. The composer conducted the instrumental ensemble of San Diego Symphony musicians–violinist Jisung Yang, violist Ethan Pernela, bass Samuel Hager, clarinetist Max Opferkuch and pianist John Blacklow–which was placed stage right, adjacent to the dramatic action. Simple but effective staging was accomplished by Hector Vega and Erich Parce, and Peter Crompton was responsible for the media design.
San Diego audiences can expect to hear more from composer Benavides and librettist Koch. According to the program notes, San Diego Opera is one of the commissioners of a new opera by this duo about the life of Dolores Huerta, slated to open in 2025.
Before presenting Tres Minutos, Benavides’ string quartet El Correcaminos (The Roadrunner) was performed by violinists Jisun Yang and Ai Awata Nihira, violist Ethan Pernela, and cellist Xian Zhuo. Cast in the traditional four-movement string quartet format, the virtues of this 30-minute work include its elegant, transparent textures and evocative desert tone paintings. Benavides’ signature effect is a quiet tremolando over which a winning cantabile theme floats. However, only the last movement is a true allegro, and I think that is too long to wait for a much needed vibrant tempo change.
This concert was presented by the San Diego Symphony in cooperation with the Seattle based Music of Remembrance organization at the Jacobs Music Center on November 22, 2024.
Ken Herman, a classically trained pianist and organist, has covered music for the San Diego Union, the Los Angeles Times’ San Diego Edition, and for sandiego.com. He has won numerous awards, including first place for Live Performance and Opera Reviews in the 2017, the 2018, and the 2019 Excellence in Journalism Awards competition held by the San Diego Press Club. A Chicago native, he came to San Diego to pursue a graduate degree and stayed.Read more…