'OMEGA' DE ENRIQUE MORENTE

A new dawn in New York

Gema Nieto. New York, November 2003
Photos: Rahev Sagev

'Omega'. Enrique Morente: cante. Niño Josele: guitar. Featuring music by the group Lagartija Nick. BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) Howard Gilman Opera House. New York City, 5th, 7th and 8th November 2003.

To say that 'Omega' marked a turning point in the evolution of flamenco is nothing new. But the fact that the city of New York bowed down before Morente six years after that album's release certainly is.

The BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) was the scene to which the well-traveled poetry of Federico García Lorca returned once again - back to the land which inspired his 'Poeta en Nueva York' more than sixty years ago, this time in the hands of Enrique Morente. Perhaps the greatest living cantaor demonstrated once again that flamenco has no qualms with innovation, and even gave a demonstration of the universality of feelings. The audiences who packed the venue for the three nights the show was programmed provided evidence enough of that, and showed once again that New Yorkers are always ready to fall in love and be swept off their feet by flamenco.

The concert, divided into two main parts, first took a fresh look at Lorca's poems and songs by Leonard Cohen but in a strictly flamenco sense, then followed on with a flamenco-rock fusion aided by Lagartija Nick. The austere set laid bare the almost empty stage, revealing the structure of the wings, reinforcing the notion of the city as an imposing space, in which man is both victim and executioner of man himself.

And in the same way, the industrial sounds brought something more with them than the mere sum of their parts, doing more than just decorating the acoustic flamenco base - just as they did on the 1996 recording. They were a true cries of the city's 'quejío', the entrails of the city which devours its own children. Morente's voice - priceless as always - cast the project in stone. For those of us who were present, the dawn in New York will never again seem the same…

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