![\"Cupid\'s New Weapons of Love\" by Orchestra of New Spain](http://www.theaterjones.com/media/m130213131422.jpg "\\"Cupid\'s New Weapons of Love\\" by Orchestra of New Spain")
On Valentine's Day this year, don't settle for a trip to somewhere else. Why not travel to another time as well? How about a visit to the theater in 18th century Spain for a change of pace?
This anomaly of physics will be made possible by the Orchestra of New Spain, a group dedicated to Baroque performance practices and to using historically accurate instruments. What's more, this performance will be, as they say, "something old and something new." The group will present something old—a completely accurate and fully staged recreation of a Baroque Spanish comic opera (zarzuela)—in something new, Dallas' recently opened City Performance Hall.
The work is Cupid's New Weapons of Love by Sebastián Durón on a libretto of José de Cañizares. Neither composer nor librettist are not known by even the most dedicated contemporary concertgoers, yet both were world-renowned in their time.
Grover Wilkins, music director of Orchestra of New Spain, first encountered one act of the zarzuela in 1989 when he was digging around in the archives of the National Opera in Madrid. Later, he met scholar Gordon Hart, who had translated the text and transcribed the music.
"In 2007, we presented some selections of the score at the San Isidro Museum in Madrid and in 2008 at the Meadows School of Music in Dallas," Wilkins says. "In cooperation with the Texas Camarata [another original instruments group], we presented it at the Modern Art Museum in Fort Worth."
"Now we will see the entire production, much as it would have been seen in 1640s," he adds.
The slim plot—Cupid's loss of his arrows to Jupiter and their return thanks to Diana—acts as a coat rack on which the composer hangs some absolutely lovely music. In keeping with the traditions of the era, the interval between acts will feature six dances that tell a completely different story, by el maestro de danzar (the dance master). The scenario is by a writer from the era, Francisco de Navarrete y Ribera.
Baroque operas, especially those of Handel, have experienced a renaissance lately with signature performances around the world. The Dallas Opera staged impressive performances of Handel's Rodelinda in 2006 and his Ariodante in 1998. They were done approximately in the Baroque manner, with sumptuous costumes and beautiful, somewhat abstract sets. However, they used modern instruments in orchestra.
Unlike the Dallas Opera's approach, some revivals are completely updated (you might say "upended"), almost to the point of absurdity. The critic Zachery Woolfe, writing in the New York Times, incredulously describes the appearance of the character Bacchus in Calixto Bieito's production of Rameau's Platée at the Stuttgart Opera as "…an immensely large, nearly naked woman—so large that my first thought was that her enormous breasts were prostheses.… [and] the chorus stood around her and caressed her, rubbing her breasts as they invoked the god in song."
Well, there will be none of that tomfoolery here. As his many fans know, music director Grover Wilkins, the energy behind the Orchestra of New Spain, is all about historical accuracy in performance practices. He has assembled a mixed Spanish and Argentinean production team that will recreate the style, gesture and dance of the original.
The production stars the outstanding Mexican mezzo-soprano, Carla López Speziale, and features Spanish dancers Jaime Puente and Yolanda Granado Requena. Stage director Gustavo Tambascio has built an international reputation in the rarified field of Baroque opera with critically acclaimed productions in Madrid, Naples and Sevilla. Needless to say, the elaborate period costumes and sets commissioned for this production will be meticulously true to historical detail.
The Orchestra of New Spain is already well-known for playing on Baroque instruments, which are very different from their modern day cousins. The score calls for a smallish orchestra: two violins, a cello and a bass, a harp, a teorbo (bass guitar), drums, a trumpet, and, of course, castanets. "And a thunder machine," adds Wilkins with a grin.
The sets will all be made of painted drops. They are newly made from preserved drawings of set designs of the era. The costumes are also based on historical drawings and are being built by the Dallas Costume Shoppe.
Wilkins had almost a month of rehearsals. "I realize that this sounds luxurious for an opera like La bohème, but our singers have to learn a completely different way of acting and singing. The have to get in the Baroque groove," he says.
He doesn't have that problem with his orchestra.
"The original instrument movement started decades ago, so most orchestral players have some acquaintance with Baroque performance practices. They may not have Baroque instruments, but they get the style," he says. "Of course, my players all have accurately reproduced instruments and we have worked together for years."
"We have lost something by our constant updating," says Wilkins. "If you go back to the source and do this music like it was originally done, it is more convincing and more integrated than any modern version."
As Woolfe summarizes in his aforementioned article on the subject, authentic Baroque performances of opera are "…far enough from the way opera is done today to be mesmerizing." 
