"El ultimo sueño de Frida y Diego" closes out the San Francisco Opera’s 100th season
14 June 2023
"El ultimo sueño de Frida y Diego" closes out the San Francisco Opera’s 100th season, running through June 13. The opera's premiere took place at the San Diego Opera in October 2022, and it was the first work by librettist Nilo Cruz, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and composer Gabriela Lena Frank. It takes place on Day of the Dead in 1957, three years after the death of Frida Kahlo at the age of 47. Rivera wishes his wife would return to the living because he misses her. Kahlo, who earlier in life experienced a car accident that left her with excruciating back and pelvic agony, is unsure about going back.
The opera, which has received praise from critics for being "gorgeous," "striking," and "alluring," is the San Francisco Opera's first to be performed in Spanish and the first by a woman of color.
Details about the opera at this link.
Director Lorena Maza explained that she and the Mexican design team made sure to avoid clichés in the plot, along with castanets and religious references, during a video conversation from the opera theater. She believes that the two artists, who had a notoriously turbulent relationship, belong to everyone and that the opera's being in Spanish makes it more accessible to a wider audience.
San Francisco is a city that Maza enjoys being in and was significant to both of her artist subjects. Here, at City Hall, directly across from the War Memorial Opera House, they got married for the second time.
Read the complete interview by 48HILLS to Lorena Maza at the link below.
