By Andrew Flack, librettist, Behold The Man opera
Miracles come in all shapes and sizes. At all times of life. Sometimes accompanied by music. I know an amateur painter in the village of Borja, Spain, who this happened to in 2012. Her name is Cecilia, and she was sure that after some 80 years of life not much more was going to happen. But it did, and I’ll tell you how.
A few kilometers outside of Borja, on a hill nestled in the pines, stands a church, Cecilia’s church, where she was married and her sons christened; the center of her prayerful life. In the church there’s a fresco of Jesus painted in 1930 by a man who hadn’t properly prepared the plaster wall, and after years of dampness and neglect, it was a crumbling mess. Did I mention that Cecilia is an amateur artist?
Actually, she’d been “touching up” the fresco of Jesus for years. She was glad to help. But this time was different: a Minister of Culture discovered her half-finished job and blew the whistle.
When her “ECCE HOMO” hit the web it went viral. Maybe you’ve seen it. Cecilia was mocked and scorned, made a internet laughingstock! I felt so badly for her.
But half-a-world away I could also see a happy ending—tourists arriving, the economy improving, Cecilia’s reputation restored! So I called my friend, Boulder-based composer Paul Fowler, and soon we were crafting a piece of musical theatre: a comic opera.
Almost four years later, Paul and I are finished. And last month, on August 20th, the first concert from “Ópera del Ecce Homo” was performed in Borja, that little village in Spain experiencing a most unlikely Renaissance. Cecilia sat beside me beaming; her disaster now a miracle…set to music!
For more info please visit beholdthemanopera.com