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STATUE PROJECT

A larger-than-life-size, bronze, equestrian statue of General Bernardo de Gálvez is in the works to be erected in Galveston, Texas. It will be located across Seawall Boulevard, and very near the entrance to Galveston’s famous Pleasure Pier, which receives more than 5 million visitors a year.

 

At this time, the Bernardo de Gálvez Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution and the Granaderos y Damas de Gálvez are seeking funds to develop this section of Menard Park, which will become the Bernardo de Gálvez Plaza.

The  project  budget  is  $700,000,  and  to  date over $75,000 has been raised through generous donations from individuals and grants from cultural and educational foundations.

 

Our idea would be to name the plaza for a major corporate or private donor, as in XYZ Corporation Bernardo de Gálvez Plaza. In addition, based on levels of donations, individuals and families will be recognized with engraved paving bricks, granite plaques and bronze plates. There are other features of the plaza, such as park benches, loggia, and arbors, which will also require sponsorship.

The Bernardo de Gálvez  Statue  Plaza  project offers an opportunity to connect residents of the Gulf Coast, who may not realize their heritage as descendants of patriots who fought for American independence, with early revolutionary war patriots who lived in this area.  The  monument  and permanent explanatory entablatures will help fill in omissions in our history by commemorating Spain’s contribution toward removing the British from the Gulf Coast during The Revolution, and it will fittingly honor the accomplishments of Gálvez in the city that bears his name. The project will   also raise awareness of the multi-ethnic army of Spaniards, Mestizos, Creoles, Indians, and free Africans that Gálvez assembled. Thus, a monument to Gálvez represents the nation’s motto of “E Pluribus Unum” (out of many, one)  by  honoring the Spanish war hero, and by recognizing the area’s multi-cultural   ties   to   the   American Revolution!

 

This important community development project combines visual arts, public education, preservation of park space, and a patriotic honoring of our ethnically  diverse   ancestors.    It  would   also  be  a fitting memorial to Gálvez  and  to  Spain  for  their   contribution   to   the   American Revolution!

 

Donate to the Statue Project HERE

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OPERA PROJECT

YO SOLO

Gálvez the Unsung Hero of the American Revolution - Let's Make Him Sing!

By Marec Béla Steffens, librettist of the Gálvez Opera Project

 

Have a look at the life of Bernardo de Gálvez. He was fighting the Apache in Texas. Fighting the Moors in Africa. The Portuguese in Europe. The British all around the Gulf of Mexico. A crucial contributor to American independence. The namesake of Galveston. The man who established the tradition of Texas cattle drives. His life is crying to become an opera, isn’t it?

 

Reading about Gálvez is a sheer pleasure. Characteristic scenes, colorful speech, striking anecdotes left, right, and center. And think of the people around him:

 

• His wife, a celebrated New Orleans belle.

• His adopted cousin, one of the first female playwrights in Spanish literature.

• Irish trader Oliver Pollock, once the richest man in the colonies, now languishing in debtors’ prison after he spent all his wealth in support of George Washington’s and George Rogers Clark’s troops.

• On the other side of the ocean, the key partner of Gálvez and Pollock was none other than Beaumarchais the playwright, on whose plays ‘Barber of Seville’ and ‘Marriage of Figaro’ two of the most successful operas in history are based.

 

All these characters will be part of the Gálvez opera. Their various ethnic backgrounds will be a feast for the composer. And a formidable composer we have: it is Mary Carol Warwick who has nine operas brought to stage so far, including several commissioned by Houston Grand Opera. Two of her operas are bilingual, English-Spanish. Her works are performed not only in the U.S. and in Canada, but also in Europe and in Singapore. She is intrigued by the libretto and already had several working sessions with Marec.

 

We will do a showcase performance when part of the music is ready. Stay tuned!

 

 

Marec Béla Steffens is a German writer and librettist who lived in Houston in 2005 and in 2011-16. He has published five books of fairy-tales in German. The manuscript for his next one, again illustrated by his wife Krystyna, was accepted by his German publisher and will have an English edition has well.

 

Opera scenes on two of his original libretti were performed in the final round of opera competitions in London (Genesis Opera Project) and at Rheinsberg Castle near Berlin. A children’s opera on Marec’s libretto, likewise with music by German composer Mario Wiegand, was world premiered in Kassel. “Two Cells in Seville” (working title), a chamber opera with Marec’s original libretto and music by his father Walter Steffens, will be world premiered by the Round Top Theatre Forum in cooperation with the Greenbriar Consortium in Houston (1 Nov. 2016) and in Round Top TX (5 Nov. 2016).

 

Parts of the Gálvez opera libretto were read in Houston, San Antonio, and Washington DC.

 

Marec’s contact: maerchenkater@web.de

 

Fundraising has started. Donations are tax-deductible.

 

Here an important Links:

 

Marec:

www.maerchenkater.de

 

Mary Carol:

http://www.marycarolwarwick.com/

 

Round Top:

http://festivalhill.org/calendar/details.php?id=2099

 

Greenbriar Consortium:

http://www.greenbriarconsortium.com/

 

Donate to the Opera Project HERE