“Canción de cuna para dormir a un negrito”

Cinco Canciones Negras

Xavier Montsalvatge, composer
Ildefonso Pereda Valdés, librettist

J'Nai Bridges, mezzo-soprano
Craig Terry, piano

Xavier Montsalvatge (1912-2002), one of Spain's most important musical figures of the twentieth century, was educated at the Barcelona Conservatory. He worked as a music critic, lecturer, and professor of composition, while maintaining his own career as a much-acclaimed composer. His nation's greatest authority on Catalonian music, he earned the highly prestigious Premio Nacional de Música in 1985.

Montsalvatge's music was influenced over the years by many different styles, from 12-tone music to a variety of contemporary French composers, such as Darius Milhaud, Georges Auric, and Olivier Messiaen. He was hugely interested in Cuban folk songs and his most significant influences came from music of the West Indian Antilles; he described it as "original Spanish, exported overseas and then reimported to our country as an evocative kind of musical lyricism." Although he composed in numerous genres (choral and orchestral works, operas, ballet), he is most famous today for his songs. Especially popular are the captivating Cinco Canciones Negras (1945), originally written for mezzo-soprano and orchestra. Several poets' texts were used for these songs; the fourth one, the entrancing "Canción de cuna para dormir a un negrito" ("Lullaby for a little black boy"), is the work of the Uruguayan Ildefonso Pereda Valdes (1899-1965), a genuine "Renaissance man"—a poet, critic, and professor of literature, as well as a folklorist and a lawyer. The singer, coaxing the boy to go to sleep, refers to his pretty freckles and his wide eyes that are gazing out to sea.

Text & translation

Ninghe, ninghe, ninghe,
Hushabye, hushabye, hushabye,

Tan chiquitito,
Small child,

El negrito
Little black boy

Que no quiere dormir.
Who does not want to sleep.

Cabeza de coco,
Head like a coconut,

Grano de café,
Like a coffee bean,

Con lindas motitas,
With pretty freckles,

Con ojos grandotes
And wide eyes

Como dos ventanas
Like two windows
Que miran al mar.
That look out to the sea.

Cierra los ojitos,
Close those little eyes,

Negrito asustado;
Frightened little black boy;

El mandinga blanco
Or the white devil

Te puede comer.
Will eat you up.
¡Ya no eres esclavo!
You are not a slave!

Y si duermes mucho,
If you sleep deeply,

El señor de casa
The master of the house

Promete comprar
Promises to buy

Traje con botones
A suit with buttons
Para ser un 'groom'.
To make you a 'groom'.

Ninghe, ninghe, ninghe,
Hushabye, hushabye, hushabye,

Duérmete, negrito,
Sleep, little black boy,

Cabeza de coco,
Head like a coconut,
Grano de café.
Like a coffee bean.

Mezzo-soprano

J'Nai Bridges

A Ryan Opera Center alumna, mezzo-soprano J’Nai Bridges has recently performed the leading roles of Nefertiti/Akhnaten (the Metropolitan Opera), Dalila/Samson et Dalila (Washington National Opera), and Federica/Luisa Miller (Gran Teatre del Liceu). She also recently sang with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic at “Global Goal: Unite for Our Future,” a globally televised and streamed concert; was featured in the Grant Park Music Festival’s 2020 virtual season; and collaborated with Los Angeles Opera in leading a Zoom panel discussion on racial inequality in opera, which included colleagues Lawrence Brownlee, Julia Bullock, Morris Robinson, Karen Slack, and Russell Thomas. Among Bridges’s scheduled prestigious engagements later this season are the title role/Carmen at the Canadian Opera Company and Giovanna Seymour/Anna Bolena at Amsterdam’s De Nationale Opera. An accomplished concert soloist, she has been featured in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection” with the Louisville Orchestra, in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the “Farewell to Christoph Eschenbach” concert with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. She created the pivotal role of Carmen in the 2015/16 world premiere of Bel Canto by Jimmy López and Nilo Cruz at Lyric (2017 PBS telecast), and has been acclaimed in the title role/The Rape of Lucretia at Wolf Trap Opera, Sister Helen Prejean/Dead Man Walking at Vancouver Opera, and Bersi/Andrea Chénier, at, among others, San Francisco Opera and Bayerische Staatsoper.

Pianist and Ryan Opera Center Music Director

Craig Terry

The American pianist has an international performance career and recently won a GRAMMY Award for “Best Classical Solo Vocal Album” for the recording he made with Joyce DiDonato, “Songplay.” He has served as the Jannotta Family Endowed Chair music director of Lyric’s Ryan Opera Center since 2013, after having spent 11 seasons with the company as an assistant conductor. Before coming to Lyric, he was an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera after joining its Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. Terry has performed extensively with such esteemed artists such as Jamie Barton, Stephanie Blythe, Lawrence Brownlee, Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Brian Jagde, Joseph Kaiser, Quinn Kelsey, Kate Lindsey, Ana María Martínez, Susanna Phillips, Luca Pisaroni, and Patricia Racette, among others. He has collaborated as a chamber musician with members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, the Lyric Opera Orchestra, Leipzig’s Gewandhaus Orchester, and the Pro Arte String Quartet. Terry is artistic director of “Beyond the Aria,” a recital series presented by the Harris Theater in collaboration with Lyric Opera of Chicago. His discography includes “Diva on Detour” with Patricia Racette, “As Long As There Are Songs” with Stephanie Blythe, and “Chanson d’Avril” with Nicole Cabell.

Craig Terry is The Jannotta Family Endowed Chair

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