Metropolitan Opera’s season comes to a close with American composer Gabriela Lena Frank’s first opera, a magical-realist portrait of Mexico’s painterly power couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, with libretto by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Nilo Cruz.
Runtime: 2:48
Libretto by Nilo Cruz
Fashioned as a reversal of the Orpheus and Euridice myth, the story depicts Frida, sung by leading mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, leaving the underworld on the Day of the Dead and reuniting with Diego, portrayed by baritone Carlos Álvarez. The famously feuding pair briefly relive their tumultuous love, embracing both the passion and the pain before bidding the land of the living a final farewell. Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the Met-premiere staging of Frank’s opera, a “confident, richly imagined score” (The New Yorker) that “bursts with color and fresh individuality” (Los Angeles Times). The vibrant new production, taking enthusiastic inspiration from Frida and Diego’s paintings, is directed and choreographed by Deborah Colker.
Conductor: Yannick Nézet-Séguin
Catrina: Gabriella Reyes | Frida: Isabel Leonard | Leonardo: Nils Wanderer* | Diego: Carlos Álvarez
Production: Deborah Colker | Set & Costume Designer: Jon Bausor | Lighting Designer: Adam Silverman