Review: FRIDA, DIEGO AND THE DAY OF THE DEAD Brings Green-Wood Cemetery to Life

The event, a partnership between Death of Classical and the Metropolitan Opera, was conceived as a companion to El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego — composer Gabriela Lena Frank and Pulitzer-winning playwright Nilo Cruz's new opera opening at the Met on May 14. An ofrenda stood near the Gothic Arch entrance, a striking display: Día de los Muertos conjured in the middle of spring.

Tequila tastings and non-alcoholic cocktails circulated among the crowd before the program began, complemented by guitar playing and a handful of dancers scattered throughout the tombstones. It was generous, unhurried, festive. By the time the music started, you were already somewhere between the living world and the one this opera imagines.

The excerpts from the opera ranged from haunting to playful, which is precisely the register of Frida and Diego's lives and art. The opera's premise, an imagined reunion between Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera on Día de los Muertos, was rendered with vivid musical color and dramatic flair.

Between performances, composer and writer Frank and Cruz spoke about the work with disarming candor. For Frank, this being her first opera, the project carries the weight of a dream finally fulfilled. Cruz described his process as tactile, beginning with preliminary scenes he calls sketches,  before setting the research aside entirely and simply drawing the story out. The feeling put forth on the stage showed a truly stunning partnership of two deeply passionate people. That’s not even accounting for the performers themselves.  

Isabel Leonard portraying Frida in the afterlife, deliberating whether to return and visit Diego on Día de los Muertos and Vanessa Isiguen as Catrina, queen of the dead, delivered both funny and gorgeous performances. Diego was portrayed by baritone Javier Arrey (subbing in for Carlos Álvarez, who is currently playing Diego in the Met production). Arrey brought exactly the gravitas the role demands.

Frank spoke of Frida and Diego knowing their own mythic scale. "They knew they were giants, they knew they were celebrities," and said the story had moved her to tears at her own work. That kind of confession, offered plainly and without performance, only made the music that followed land harder.

The evening's most overwhelming moment may have been the simplest: Frida Kahlo’s diary entry, read sentence by sentence with Spanish and English translations alternating. The love she expressed for Diego was lyrical to the point of incantation. "You are all the combinations of numbers. Life. My wish is to understand lines, form, shades, movement. You fulfill and I receive." Words like those, delivered among gravestones as the last light held, made the opera's premise feel less like magical realism and more like real life: the stubborn, beautiful refusal of the dead to stay gone.

The Met Opera plays now through June 5. Tickets are available here. It's presented in conjunction with a MoMA exhibit about the couple, open now through September.

For more Death of Classical events at www.deathofclassical.com

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt

Photo credit: Justin Buschardt