• Gabriela Lena Frank
  • El último sueño de Frida y Diego (The Last Dream of Frida and Diego) (2021)

  • G Schirmer Inc (World)

Commissioned and Produced by San Diego Opera, San Francisco Opera, Fort Worth Opera, and DePauw University, School of Music, with generous support from the University of Texas at Austin College of Fine Arts

  • San Diego Opera version: 2(I:pic,afl.II:pic).2.2(II:bcl).2(II:cbn)/2.2.0.0/2perc/pf(cel[=syn]).hp/str
  • San Francisco Opera version: 2(I:pic,afl.II:pic).2.2(II:bcl).2(II:cbn)/4.2.1.0/timp.2perc/pf(cel[=syn]).hp/str
  • SSAATTBB chorus
  • Soprano, Mezzo-soprano, Countertenor, Baritone
  • 2 hr

Programme Note

Cast
   CATRINA: Soprano
   FRIDA: Mezzo-soprano
   DIEGO: Baritone
   LEONARDO: Countertenor
   
   ALDEANO #1: Baritone
   ALDEANO #2/Young Man: Tenor (sung by same person)
   ALDEANO #3: Bass
   FRIDA IMAGE #1: Soprano
   FRIDA IMAGE #2: Mezzo-Soprano
   FRIDA IMAGE #3: Alto
   GUADELUPE PONTI: Soprano or Mezzo-Soprano
   
   Chorus: SSAATTBB

Synopsis
Set in 1957, the opera opens in a cemetery, as Mexico celebrates the annual festival of El 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.

Scores

Full Score: San Diego Opera orchestration
Full score: San Francisco Opera orchestration
Piano Vocal Score, under revision

Features

  • New Opera Highlights from Wise Music Classical
    • New Opera Highlights from Wise Music Classical
    • Wise Music Classical invites you to explore new highlights from our opera catalogue. In these recent and upcoming premieres, new productions, and premiere recordings, our composers and their creative collaborators explore subjects ranging from the historical (Hadrian, X: The Life and Times of Malcom X, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) to the futuristic (Oryx and Crake), the fantastic (El Ultimo Sueño de Frida y Diego, Florencia en el Amazonas, Die Kinder des Sultans) to the thoroughly contemporary (Innocence, The Shell Trial). Threaded throughout these works are perennial themes of loss, longing, magic, art-making, and community.
  • 2024 Opera Highlights
    • 2024 Opera Highlights
    • Ahead of Opera America’s 2024 Opera Conference and the World Opera Forum, Wise Music Classical invites you to explore new highlights from our opera catalogue. Across major premieres, new productions, and first recordings, our composers and their collaborators explore both timely issues and the timeless themes of love, desire, and belonging.

Reviews

Opera is an ideal medium for fusing magic and reality, and “El último sueño de Frida y Diego” (“The Last Dream of Frida and Diego”), which had its world premiere at the San Diego Opera on Saturday, does just that with sensitivity and charm. 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, and featuring Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera

There’s no Halloween terror or mourning gloom to the piece. Like the holiday, it is about love, remembering and forgiveness. And comedy: Catrina, Keeper of the Dead, who controls the passage between worlds, is funny. As in the traditional Orpheus story, art is the passport across the border. Frida, who remembers only the physical and emotional pain of her life—she was profoundly injured in a tram accident and her two marriages to Diego were laced with infidelity—doesn’t want to go but changes her mind at the prospect of being able to paint once more. Yet Mr. Cruz’s poignant libretto keeps us in the realm of dreams rather than nightmares. Even the moment that Frida feels pain again—when, disobeying Catrina’s command to keep her distance, she embraces Diego—is brief.

Ms. Frank’s alluring music also shuttles eloquently between the worlds.

Heidi Waleson, WSJ
November 2022

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