"Cubanacan" will a major event as it is the first opera in almost 50 years to come out of Cuba.

The work is written by Charles Koppelman and composed by Roberto Valera. The production team recently announced that director Charles Chemin was brought into create the vision for the work's premiere.

Chemin has an extensive background in theater and film, but "Cubanacan" will be his first crack at opera. The Frenchman called in from his native country to talk to Latin Post about how he got involved with the project and his vision for bringing Cubanacan to life.

Latin Post: Congratulations on being picked as the director. How did you get involved with it?

Charles Chemin: What happens is that I work closely with director [Robert] Wilson. He has been following this project very closely for years. He has been in contact with Charles Koppelman and he actually recommended me.

LP: When you were first approached did you get any exposure to the music, the libretto? What has been your experience with the work so far?

CC: I've listened to the rendering of the music from the computer. I heard a few extracts of the singers also performing in small forums. I think they performed in NY?

LP: They did.

CC: I also had the whole score which was emailed to me. So the full libretto and the translation in Spanish as well. I have been going through those documents and at one point I had to drop the midi music because it is so metallic. I focused more on the excerpts I had to understand the mood of the singers.

LP: Is there a visual idea that you have for the show? Any imagery?

 CC: Visually, it is a bit challenging because the opera goes back and forth between different periods. So, visually, it is hard to be continuous. It is important to find areas of the stage that goes with those different eras of the opera.

We also have this beautiful setting because we are performing outside the art schools that are talked about in the opera.

Most of my ideas are pretty abstract because I have yet to see the location. My orientation up to now is to base it on lighting. Lighting the schools. Lighting the arches. And creating different spaces onstage.

Can you elaborate a bit more on the challenges of directing the opera's shifting time periods?

 CC: For me, it will be a real challenge to express this sense of jumping from one moment to another. 1961, '59 and '51. Some scenes start in 1961 and continue much later in the opera. That is why I want to find different areas of the stage to give audiences visual cues about where we are.

In terms of putting characters such as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara on stage, how are you preparing for those challenges? What is your process?

 That is a big question. Dealing with such figures is tough because they are recent. They are icons for many reasons. For being hated and loved! It is a huge challenge, especially doing it in Cuba.

My goal with that is to consider the importance of what they are saying or would have been saying about the priority to have the artists come back fully into the society by building those art schools.

So my take won't be judgmental. I don't want to say that they are good in this and bad in that.

I will try to have the two sides of the figures, both the good and the bad.

I am not a political director. I believe in poetry as being a political force more than anything. The writing of the music will be the main support for building these characters for me. Because the mood of the music is actually very light and it is supposed to be after the revolution. They are completely in a light mood.

LP: What would you like the audience to take away from the experience?

CC: The main thing for me is that when I listen to the opera and consider it, I really want to build a hero out of the [artist] Ricardo Porro. He is not a hero in the traditional sense but he is an artistic hero. He puts himself behind the art he is trying to achieve. That is one thing I would emphasize.

LP: You have done a lot of theater and film. How is opera different for you?

 CC: Opera is very different because you always have a frame. In theater I build everything, even when there is text. I can expand it. I can have one word and then wait five minutes for the rest of the text. With opera you have a frame. It makes you very humble when you approach it as a director. You still have to find ways to not do a stage concert because I would not accept it if it was that way.

It is difficult to still create a work of art on stage and still follow a work that is already written by a composer.

LP: This is your directorial debut in opera. Can you recall your very first experience in this artistic world?

 CC: I was four years old. Actually I was five and my mom took me to see an opera in which my father was performing. It was Debussy's "The Martyrdom of San Sebastian."

LP: You father was a singer?

 CC: No he was a narrator. An actor.

Actually my biggest shock was when I was nine years old and I saw Bob Wilson's "Einstein on the Beach."

LP: Hold on one second. Are talking about The Robert Wilson?

 CC: Yes.

 LP: He is your mentor?

 Yes. I have worked with him since I was a kid.

LP: It must be an honor to work alongside him!

 CC: It is. He is a true genius. As I was saying, that "Einstein on the Beach" has accompanied me everywhere. It is a revolution in the history of opera. This particular work which he created with Phillip Glass, to see the freedom and lack of liberty all in work is what really pushed me.