Frank Operas - 2023

Gabriela Lena Frank OPERA AND STAGE WORKS Conquest Requiem (2017), El último sueño de Frida y Diego (2021)

El último sueño de Frida y Diego An opera in two acts (2021)

Libretto (Spanish) by Nilo Cruz Premiere: October 2022, San Diego Opera Duration: 2 hours

cast

CATRINA: Soprano FRIDA: Mezzo-soprano DIEGO: Baritone LEONARDO: Countertenor ALDEANO #1: Baritone ALDEANO #2/Young Man: Tenor (sung by same person)

synopsis

ALDEANO #3: Bass FRIDA IMAGE #1: Soprano FRIDA IMAGE #2: Mezzo-Soprano FRIDA IMAGE #3: Alto GUADELUPE PONTI: Soprano or Mezzo-Soprano Chorus: SSAATTBB

Set in 1957, the opera opens in a cemetery, as Mexico celebrates the annual festival of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). The great muralist Diego Rivera walks among the worshipers as they prepare for the return of the spirits to the world, singing with joy and anticipation. Surrounded by sugar-coated skulls, candles, and fragrant marigold flowers, he longs to see his deceased lover Frida Kahlo once again before he passes on.

In the afterlife, Catrina, the keeper of the souls, approaches Frida and explains that Diego desperately needs his beloved angel as the seed of death quickly sprouts within him. Moved by the desires of the departed souls she encounters around her, Frida reluctantly agrees to join him in the world above, with the knowledge that the dead can never touch the living.

For only twenty-four hours, Frida and Diego will relive their tumultuous love through their paintings, embracing the passion they shared and the pain they inflicted upon one other.

orchestra

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alternate orchestration

2(I:pic,afl.II:pic).2.2(II:bcl).2(II:cbn)/4.2.1.0/timp.2perc/pf(cel[=syn]).hp/str additional brass and percussion

press

“Composer Gabriela Lena Frank and librettist Nilo Cruz have created a twist on the Orpheus and Eurydice story, this time in Spanish, set on the Mexican holiday El Día de los Muertos....There’s no Halloween terror or mourning gloom to the piece. Like the holiday, it is about love, remembering and forgiveness.”

— Heidi Waleson, The Wall Street Journal “...Nilo Cruz’s libretto is chock full of linguistic imagery, lyricism, and metaphor.”

— Jordan Julien, Stage and Cinema “...richly scored, lyrically detailed...”

— Pam Kragen, San Diego Union-Tribune

Conquest Requiem (2017) Libretto in Latin and Spanish by Nilo Cruz Duration: 38 minutes Premiere: May 1996, New York Festival of Song

cast

Soprano, Baritone, SATB chorus

orchestra

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note

Based on the true story of Malinche, a Nahua woman from the Gulf Coast of Mexico, this requiem recounts the conquest of the Americas.

Traditional liturgical verses from the Latin Mass for the Dead and Nahua poetry oppose each other. Newly composed Spanish words by librettist Nilo Cruz round out the text.

photos

Cover: El último sueño de Frida y Diego at San Diego Opera, image by Eloise Kazan

El último sueño de Frida y Diego at San Diego Opera, costume design by Eloise Kazan

For more information contact Peggy Monastra peggy.monastra@schirmer.com, 212-254-2100

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Photo by Mariah Tauger

Identity has always been at the center of composer/ pianist Gabriela Lena Frank’s music. Born in Berkeley, California (September, 1972), to a mother of mixed Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, Frank explores her multicultural heritage most ardently through her compositions. Inspired by the works of Bela Bartók and Alberto Ginastera, Frank is something of a musical anthropologist. She has traveled extensively throughout South America and her pieces often reflect and refract her studies of Latin American folklore, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a Western classical framework that is uniquely her own.