Review: San Diego Opera’s visually stunning ‘Frida y Diego’ opera an insightful and musically rich world premiere

The last words Mexican painter Frida Kahlo wrote in her diary before she died in 1954 were: “I hope exit is joyful, and I hope never to come back.”

But on Saturday, Frida did return in San Diego Opera’s world premiere Spanish-language opera “El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego” (“The Last Dream of Frida and Diego”), which plays through Sunday at the San Diego Civic Theatre.

Composed by Gabriela Lena Frank, with a libretto by Nilo Cruz, “El Último Sueño” is a richly scored, lyrically detailed and visually stunning work that intimately examines the tumultuous lives of Mexico’s most iconic artistic couple.

In the two-hour, 20-minute piece, Kahlo is summoned from the afterworld in 1957 by her dying husband, Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, who wants to see her once again on Dia de los Muertos, Mexico’s Day of the Dead, when souls can return to the living world for 24 hours each Nov. 1. At first, Kahlo rejects Rivera’s call. Her life on Earth was one of immense suffering, both due to Rivera’s serial philandering and from the unrelenting pain of a debilitating spine injury. But ultimately, she agrees to “return to the land of the gaze,” not for Rivera but for the chance to see her artwork and paint once again.

Classical Music

A behind-the-scenes look at San Diego Opera’s world-premiere opera ‘El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego’

‘El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego,’ a world premiere opera opening Saturday at the San Diego Civic Theatre, tells the story of Frida and Diego in the afterlife

Oct. 23, 2022

Frida Kahlo’s paintings come to life in San Diego Opera’s “El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego” (“The Last Dream of Frida and Diego”).

(Courtesy of Karli Cadel)

Frank’s score, sensitively conducted by Roberto Kalb, fascinates with its multiplicity of colors, styles and character specificity. Rivera’s songs — performed with soulful restraint by baritone Afredo Daza — are deep and mournful, reflecting the artist’s regrets over his cruelty. Kahlo’s music — performed with a fierce, aching resolve by mezzo-soprano Guadalupe Paz — has a piercing urgency, particularly “El Mundo” (“The World”), where she recalls the agony of her life on Earth. And most intriguing is the music she wrote for the skeletal Catrina, the keeper of souls in the underworld — performed by soprano Maria Katzarava, whose elliptical arias, peppered with pulses of eerie “ha ha ha” laughter, sound like the rattle of bones. A fourth principal character, a cross-dressing spirit named Leonardo — sung sweetly by countertenor Key’Mon W. Murrah — are the most sweepingly feminine arias in the score.

Cruz’s densely written libretto doesn’t waste a word on repeated phrases. Each line is filled with deep insights into Kahlo and Rivera’s lives and work, as well as the symbolism of Dia de los Muertos, the mythology of the underworld, Mictlan, and the history of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital where Mexico City now stands. Unfortunately for non-Spanish speakers, some of the florid beauty and humor of the language is lost in the sometimes-clunky translations. For example, Rivera is sometimes jarringly referred to in the supertitles as a fatty, toad and worse, but these are nicknames meant as tongue-in-cheek endearments.

Maria Katzarava plays Catrina, the keeper of souls, in San Diego Opera’s “El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego” (“The Last Dream of Frida and Diego”).

(Courtesy of Karli Cadel)

But what audiences will most remember about “El Último Sueño” is its eye-popping, magical realism-style beauty. The all-Mexican team of director Lorena Maza and designers Jorge Ballina (scenery), Eloise Kazan (costumes) and Victor Zapatero (lighting) have created onstage the vibrantly colored, ex-voto folk art-inspired world that Kahlo created on her canvases. There’s the marigold- and votive candle-filled cemetery that rises up to expose the underworld, where the souls of conquistadors, Indigenous Indians and Mexican revolutionaries mingle. Eight of Frida’s self-portraits come to life in imaginative costumes, and Frida’s blue Casa Azul and the orange-hued underworld melt away to reveal the ancient Aztec pyramid at the root of pre-Columbian culture.

Over the past six years, San Diego Opera has worked hard to expand its audience, particularly within the Hispanic community that makes up more than a third of the county’s population. Co-producing this new opera about Mexico’s most famous artists, is only one example of the company’s outreach effort. A second example debuted at Saturday’s opening night performance: a new supertitles projection system that will translate all of the company’s operas from now on in both English and Spanish.

Just like Kahlo in “El Último Sueño,” San Diego Opera has come back for its new season, and it’s a welcome return.

Classical Music

Next up at San Diego Opera: Frida and Diego in the afterlife

The love and art of married Mexican painters Kahlo and Rivera are the subject of a new Spanish-language opera titled ‘El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego’

Oct. 23, 2022

San Diego Opera: ‘El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego’ (‘The Last Dream of Frida and Diego’)

When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday and Friday. 2 p.m. Sunday

Where: San Diego Civic Theatre, 1100 Third Ave., San Diego

Tickets: $19-$315

Phone: (619) 533-7000

Online: sdopera.org

The underworld exposed in San Diego Opera’s “El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego” (“The Last Dream of Frida and Diego”).

(Courtesy of Karli Cadel)