USA operetta based upon elderly parishioner's 'botched' fresco restoration
USA operetta based upon elderly parishioner's 'botched' fresco restoration
A COMEDY operetta centred on the 'restoration' of the Ecce Homo fresco in Borja (Zaragoza) by 85-year-old parishioner Cecilia Giménez will go live in the USA next year and be staged in the painting's home town in 2017.
Playwright Andrew Flack, from Denver, Colorado said his friend, composer Paul Fowler had been 'hassling him for years' to write an operetta, and he got his long-awaited idea after reading a news article titled Crazy old woman ruins priceless masterpiece.
“Residents were furious, but Cecilia didn't seem crazy to me – she came across very well,” said Flack.
Cecilia (pictured below right), then 82, had started to restore the badly-deteriorated 1930s fresco in her local church under her own steam, something she says she had always done before and with the priest's full knowledge and blessing, for no pay, merely because she loved art.
She maintains that when the 'restored' painting hit the headlines, she had barely started, and that it was not intended to remain that way.
Initially, the small land-locked town in Aragón was in uproar and the descendants of the artist planning to sue her for wilful destruction, but such was the media repercussion that curious tourists from all over the world started to flock to Borja to see the 'botched' restoration for themselves.
Petitions followed, calling for the fresco to be left as it was, and now, the church charges tickets for visitors to view it and take 'selfies' with it.
Bars, shops, hotels and restaurants in a town that, prior to 2012, nobody had ever heard of are now doing a roaring trade – and low-cost carrier Ryanair began running flights to Zaragoza from the UK and Ireland for €1.
Borja has never looked back, and now, Cecilia's story is about to become art in other ways.
Flack said he rang Fowler and said: “Paul, here's the idea – a woman ruins a nearly-worthless fresco and saves an entire town.”
The playwright travelled to Borja in September 2013 to meet Cecilia in person and, in 2014, finished the libretto for the first act.
By July this year, the libretto for act two was penned.
A total of nine sopranos, tenors and baritones will sing in the final production, which is directed by Amanda Berg Wilson, including Marj Fowler as Cecilia and her real-life husband Dean Fowler as the mayor of Borja.
At all times, Flack portrays Cecilia as the 'heroine' he considers her to be.
Scene one takes place in the church, showing Cecilia as a very devout Catholic who restores the fresco 'after God appears to her in a dream', at the author's sister's recommendation as she says she had a similar experience.
Scene two shows the mayor and various residents lamenting the economic crisis which is bringing the country to its knees, and analysing strategies for bringing tourists into their sleepy town, including the restoration of the fresco as a visitor attraction.
The plot then continues, with residents furious at Cecilia's having 'messed up' the restoration, and then changing their minds when the new version of the Ecce Homo becomes a worldwide sensation and brings in crowds from every corner of the globe.
Originally painted by little-known artist Elías Martínez in 1930, the year Cecilia was born, the fresco was not very valuable and its subject was one featured on literally hundreds of thousands of paintings from almost every era in art history.
It had never enjoyed any fame or renown, nor was it ever really noticed by the villagers, until Cecilia's 'masterpiece' made it world-famous.
As well as the predictable flood of memes on social networks, superimposing the new Ecce Homo's head onto the diners on Da Vinci's The last supper and onto president Mariano Rajoy, the painting has inspired musical videos, songs, documentaries and even appeared in the fifth film in the 'toilet humour' comedy series, Torrente.
Cecilia is aware of the opera and says she has taken it 'in the same way as many other things they send me from all over the world – from Germany, from everywhere'.
She recalls that when the initial outrage broke out over her restoration, she took to bed for two days with a panic attack, terrified and devastated, but that she is now 'used to it' and 'very grateful to all the people who come to Borja' because of her picture, especially those who ask to have their photo taken with her.
Cecilia says she is 'not up to photos right now' as she is having some health problems and 'cannot do anything', but admits she is now proud of her painting and 'the good it has done for the town'.
Even now, three years on, tourists continue to flock to Borja to see Cecilia's unique version of the Ecce Homo in the flesh.
