Ever since her death in 1954, flamboyant Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, who was as notorious for her politics and sexual liaisons as she was for her paintings, has risen to the level of a cultural icon. She has also become a cottage industry with her image adorning everything imaginable from sequined handbags to dish towels.
“The life of Frida Kahlo was an opera waiting to happen,” observed composer Robert Xavier Rodriguez prior to Long Beach Opera’s opening night performance of his opera, “Frida,” which took place Saturday in collaboration with the Museum of Latin American Art. LBO is the 15th company to present the work since its 1991 premiere at the American Music Theatre Festival. Its 16th will take place this week in Cincinnati.
Rodriquez does not refer to his creation as an opera. He sees it as a musical theater hybrid somewhere “between the opera house and Broadway.” And it does indeed wander all over that musical continuum.
One moment, Frida, played with feisty intensity by Puerto Rican mezzo-soprano Laura Virella, is confronting her larger-than-life husband, the painter Diego Rivera, sung with machismo ferocity by Venezuelan-American baritone Bernardo Bermudez, in a grand opera duet.
The next moment the musical landscape may shift to a Mexican folk song, a political anthem, or a tango akin to Kurt Weill. These shifts happen so fast and so often that it’s hard to maintain a sense of musical equilibrium.
Distilling the complexities of Frida Kahlo’s life — politically, historically, romantically, artistically and medically — into a 2 hour and 15 minute opera is a challenge. And the book by Hilary Blecher with lyrics and monologues by Migdalia Cruz is mostly a pastiche in 13 episodes. Some are long enough to convey real dramatic intensity. Many others whiz by like so many billboards on a highway.
The drama is at its best when the direction by Andreas Mitisek focuses on the emotional/artistic conflicts that ebbed, flowed and overflowed throughout Kahlo’s marriage, divorce and remarriage to Rivera.
Slender as a reed, and decked out in her traditional Mexican finery, Virella looks remarkably like the real Frida, especially when she confronts the imposing presence of Bermudez’ Rivera — her “Sweet Colossus.”
Rodriguez conceived the opera for a cast of 13 singers accompanied by dancers and puppets. In its most extravagant staging (for a production in Guadalajara) that number swelled to 80.
The forces assembled by LBO are decidedly more modest. In addition to the two leads, four singers are required to play multiple roles, including quick change appearances as Leon Trotsky, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller and a quartet of semiominous Day of the Dead figures, the Calaveras. The singers include: Alejandra Martinez, Joanna Ceja, Jonathan Lacayo and David Castillo.
Visually the production relies almost entirely on background projections of Kahlo’s paintings and a variety of vibrant ethnic costumes, including one spectacular dress acquired during a shopping spree on Olvera Street.
Originally scored for 11 instruments, Kristof Van Grysperre conducted an ensemble of six musicians that play multiple instruments. Neither singers or musicians profited from the decision to perform the opera outdoors in the cool night air of the museum’s sculpture courtyard. And with the orchestra set off to one side, it was difficult for the singers to hear properly, which often resulted in problems in pitch.
On opening night, “Frida” was still very rough around the edges. It should gain polish and luster as its run progresses.
Jim Farber is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.
‘Frida’
Rating: 2.5 stars.
When: 8 p.m. Friday-Sunday.
Where: Grand Performances, 350 S. Grand Ave, Los Angeles (Friday); Museum of Latin American Art, 628 Alamitos Ave, Long Beach (Saturday and Sunday)
Tickets: Free at Grand Performances; $49-$150 at the Museum of Latin American Art
Running time: 2 hours, 15 minutes with one intermission
Suitability: Some mature content
Information: www.longbeachopera.org
