The Isthmian | covering the panama isthmus

by KIMBERLYN DAVID

Irena Sylya

Wotan, a white toy poodle with a mean bark, accosts me on my way into Irena Sylya’s apartment, which occupies the 13th floor of a Paitilla high-rise. Wotan (pronounced voh-tan), a mythological war god, is a big name for a small dog. But the name fits. The creature circling my ankles is furious about me invading his territory.

Through a scratchy whisper, Sylya grumbles about a bad cold troubling one of her vocal chords. “It’s the right one—I can feel it.” Should we reschedule? “Oh, no—no, no.” It’s now or never: Sylya, general director of Fundación Ópera Panamá, is knee-deep in producing a four-night run of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.” Three weeks before opening night, Sylya’s to-do list remains scarily long. There’s little time for non-theater activities. So, the cliché beckons, the show (our interview) must go on.

An international opera singer, Sylya is known for commanding performances. Which is why it’s surprising to learn that in college she excelled in science but faltered in music. The science, it seems, underscores her encyclopedic knowledge of music (“Each blood cell has its own vibration, which is like a Viennese Waltz,” she offers at one point.).

Sylya, who grew up in a small Alabama town and has lived in Europe, dreamed of retiring in Italy before she and her husband George bought property in Panama about 10 years ago. They moved here permanently in March 2006, when Sylya started teaching music at the University of Panama. Her visiting professorship ends this year, and through the foundation’s initiatives, Sylya is stirring Panama’s second opera awakening.

The first occurred in the early 1900s, with the country’s emergence as a commerce hub. Opera debuted in Panama in October 1908 with Verdi’s “Aida” by an Italian company at Teatro Nacional. Foreign theater companies staged numerous shows in Panama, and for its part, the National Assembly supported laws creating a national music conservatory and a national symphony orchestra. From 1926 to 1938, the Panamanian government funded a national opera school. But a national company never developed, and after nearly 40 years of ongoing activity, opera disappeared after WWII.

Ópera Panamá added a new chapter to Panama’s opera history with “Madame Butterfly,” staged during last year’s celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of Teatro Nacional. Panama’s second opera awakening comes ahead of the canal’s planned expansion, a fact duly noted on Ópera Panamá’s website. Sylya is determined to nurture theater culture by establishing a national opera company. In reaching this goal, Sylya concentrates on a personal motto, the same one that helped her ignore the odds in becoming an international opera star: “Never face reality.” To face reality is to recognize barriers. It’s much better to visualize opportunities.

Anyone less dogged could’ve been discouraged by red tape alone. Setting up a foundation requires paperwork that takes forever to process. Organizing visas for visiting artists? Major hassle. Putting together—and then actually sticking to—a production schedule? Anyone familiar with Panama’s penchant for the “tranquilo” way of being knows where this goes—nowhere.

“I don’t know how she manages,” says Moisés Guevara. A music history professor at the University of Panama, a viola player for the National Symphony, and Ópera Panamá’s president, Guevara knows a thing or two about multi-tasking. Nevertheless, he’s awed by Sylya’s tireless devotion to every aspect of production, from designing sets to overseeing costumes. She even loads and delivers props to the theater.

In other words, Sylya is no finger-snapping, bring-me-my-latte diva. Which doesn’t mean she doesn’t maintain standards. Ask any “Magic Flute” performer. “Irena demands the best of everyone,” says Diana Durán, a 24-year-old soprano who studied with Sylya at the University of Panama. “She has the gift of seeing the smallest talent in someone and making something great of it.”

Durán’s words summarize a core principle of Sylya’s grassroots approach: empowering young people to fully develop their talents, the seeds of a sprouting national opera company.

These days, Sylya is too busy producing to perform. We get sidetracked on that point—Wotan interrupts us by barking. Sylya scoops him up, patting his head. Her affection won’t placate him, and he growls at her. There’s no pleasing the divo. Pobrecito—he’s not happy unless he’s creating drama.

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“La Flauta Mágica” (“The Magic Flute”) opens at Teatro Nacional on September 29 and runs through October 2. All performances start at 7:30 p.m., and tickets are available at Blockbuster. For more information about the show or Ópera Panamá, see www.operapanama.com.