Ainadamar - "fountain of tears" in Arabic - is the name of a well near Granada where Federico Garcia Lorca was murdered by fascists in the Spanish civil war in 1936. Osvaldo Golijov's first opera, first performed at Tanglewood in 2003 and revised for a production at Santa Fe last year, views the events surrounding Lorca's death through the eyes of the Catalan actress Margarita Xirgu, who collaborated with the writer on a number of his plays.

Each of the three scenes in Henry David Hwang's libretto, translated into Spanish by the composer, begins with a verse of the ballad that opens Lorca's play Mariana Pineda as at the end of her life Xirgu relives Lorca's arrest and murder. The score is a typical Golijov stylistic collage incorporating electronics and sampled sounds, and dominated by the colours and rhythms of flamenco; it is skilfully put together and vividly scored, but it's hard to pin down Golijov's own musical voice. The role of Margarita was created for Dawn Upshaw, and though ideally it needs an earthier voice than hers, she puts everything into the performance, as always.