Yerma

Yerma (English: Barren) is a play by the Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca. It was written in 1934 and first performed that same year. García Lorca describes the play as "a tragic poem." The play tells the story of a childless woman living in rural Spain. Her desperate desire for motherhood becomes an obsession that eventually drives her to commit a horrific crime. Because of the time she is living in, she is expected to bear children. When she cannot, she is forced to measures that those in her society would view as extreme.

Although critics speculate that Yerma kills her husband in the end because he is a frugal, economically driven man who has no desire to have children, the play is indeterminate on this issue. She kills him at a hermitage, a religious place with the possibility of fertility. However he has already shown no desire to have children, so there is no evidence that he would have changed his mind at the festival.

Plot

Yerma has been married two years. She wants to strengthen her husband, Juan, so he can give her children. Telling Yerma to stay at home, Juan goes back to his work in the olive groves, and Yerma talks and sings to the child she wishes she were carrying. María, married five months and already pregnant, asks Yerma to sew for the baby. Yerma fears that if she, too, doesn't conceive soon, her blood will turn to poison. The couple's friend, Víctor, sees Yerma sewing and assumes she is pregnant. His advice when he learns the truth: Try harder.

Yerma (opera)

Yerma is an opera in three acts by Heitor Villa-Lobos based on the tragedy of the same name by Federico García Lorca.

History

Yerma was commissioned in 1955 by Hugh Ross, the conductor of the New York Schola Cantorum and an old friend of Villa-Lobos, and by John Blankenship, at that time head of the drama department at Sarah Lawrence College. The original plan was that García Lorca's play would be translated into English by the British poet Alastair Raid and Hugh Ross, but Villa-Lobos immediately began setting the original Spanish text. It was composed partly in New York, partly in Paris, and was finished in 1956.

Yerma was first performed by the Santa Fe Opera in Santa Fe, New Mexico on August 12, 1971 (erroneously reported in one source as July 12), and repeated just once, on August 18. The Santa Fé premiere was produced by Basil Langton, choreographed by José Limón, with scenery by Allen Charles Klein. Paintings by Giorgio de Chirico were projected on the walls during the intermissions.

Yerma (film)

Yerma is a 1984 Hungarian drama film directed by Imre Gyöngyössy and Barna Kabay, based on the play of the same name written by Federico García Lorca. The film was selected as the Hungarian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 57th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.

Cast

See also

References

External links