As the end of his life approaches in 1957, legendary Mexican painter Diego Rivera feels lonely and unprepared for his transition to the other side. On November 2 — the Day of the Dead — he summons the spirit of his wife, the prodigiously gifted Frida Kahlo, and asks her to return so that they may travel together to the underworld. Embittered by trauma and past betrayals, Frida rejects him at first — but then changes her mind and reconnects with the beauty of the art that she had left behind.
This deeply poetic allegory is the narrative threadline that runs through "El Último Sueño de Frida & Diego," the new opera by composer Gabriela Lena Frank with a libretto by Pulitzer winning playwright Nilo Cruz. Praised by The New Yorker when it premiered in San Diego last year, the show — which translates to "Frida & Diego's Last Dream" — is playing at the LA Opera from Nov. 18 through Dec. 9.
"I felt very fortunate when I received Nilo's libretto and saw that his opera was filled with so much dramatic potential," says Frank during a break from rehearsals. "Will Frida agree to go back and see Diego? Will she be able to paint again? Will she reconcile in any way with him? All these critical questions have been carefully set up — and then answered — by Nilo."
In visual terms, the sumptuous stage design mirrors the passionate cosmovision of Kahlo and Rivera. It also avoids falling into cultural clichés.
"The first thing that comes to mind when you think of Diego and Frida are those strong primary colors, and we definitely didn't want to disappoint," says Lorena Maza, who directed the opera. "That said, we felt the need to avoid the excessive use of color. We decided to favor a monochromatic palette, as an artistic statement."
During the first act, the underworld of Mexican mythology known as Mictlán is represented with the use of orange.
"We thought of marigold, the flower known in Mexico as cempasúchil and used widely during the Día de los Muertos festivities," explains Maza. "It's the orange of candlelight and celebration. In the second act we switch to blue — the same intense cobalt shade that you find in the walls of la casa azul, Frida's home in Coayacán. We even reproduced one of Diego's murals — Sueño de una Tarde Dominical en la Alameda Central (Dream of a Sunday Afternoon at Alameda Central Park) — with its distinct pastel tonalities."
Frank's score imbues the opera's trance-like aesthetic with layers of lush melodies and intriguing orchestrations. The music is wickedly playful at times, especially when it involves the character of Catrina, the ghoulish keeper of the dead who negotiates both the return of Frida and Diego's inevitable departure. But it also delves into intense, somber emotions — like the scene where a chorus of spirits and villagers chant the word agonía (agony) as Frida writhes in pain, remembering the unbearable amount of physical suffering that she endured during her lifetime.
"I was tasked with the job of conveying three different worlds," Frank explains. "The world of the living, the world of the dead, and, for a brief segment, the world of art. It was important for me to devise unusual combinations of sounds. I was given a harp and a celesta, and combined them with unexpected instruments like the piccolo, to create eerie effects."
The composer, who has evoked her Peruvian heritage in previous works, also uses the hypnotic strains of the marimba as a direct link between the score and the libretto's Latin American scope.
"To my ear, the marimba is one of the main instruments in Central American music," she says. "I have one at home — we pianists think that we can play the marimba, when we really can't. But its sound is very familiar to me. The marimba is in almost every scene of the opera, even if you can't recognize it."
The appearance of an opera that draws directly from Latino culture — both visual and musical — hasn't gone unnoticed among California audiences (so far, "El Último Sueño" has been staged in San Diego, San Francisco and Los Angeles). According to director Maza, about 30% of the people who attended a performance went to the opera for the first time in their lives.
"I still believe in the power of classic art formats," she says. "We are competing with the media madness of platforms and apps, but when the opera tickets are affordable, the hall fills up with young people. I'm especially inspired by the fact that this is a Spanish language opera. Latinos can have access to a work of art that speaks about their own reality — something that moves them and makes them think."
Maza, a college professor in her native Mexico, believes that the democratization of culture is of the essence, now more than ever.
"I worked on this because of my conviction, passion and vocation," she emphasizes. "I believe in the power of art to move the soul and inspire reflection. It may sound absurd, but in this day and age, staging an opera feels almost like a subversive act."
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