Chicago Classical Review

Mon Mar 23, 2026 at 1:19 pm

Was any artistic couple better suited to dramatic treatment than Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo?

Probably not by the evidence of copious books, movies, and, now, an opera. Lyric Opera is closing its season with the Chicago premiere of Gabriela Lena Frank’s El último sueño de Frida y Diego (The Last Dream of Frida and Diego), which opened Saturday night. 

The composer’s first opera is on a fast train to success. Frank’s opera premiered at San Diego Opera in 2022 and moved on to San Francisco the following year. After this Chicago run, Frida y Diego will debut in New York in May with Isabel Leonard and Carlos Alvarez starring in a new Metropolitan Opera production.

Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo shared many interests, principally their painting, travel, and leftist politics (both were committed Marxists). Despite the 20-year age difference, the Mexican artists married in 1929 (Rivera’s third marriage, Kahlo’s first) and Kahlo’s art flourished under Rivera’s encouragement and guidance. Yet theirs was a tumultuous relationship (they divorced in 1939 and remarried the following year) with both engaging in numerous extramarital liaisons. The bisexual Kahlo was at least as prolific as Rivera in this regard, her striking looks attracting numerous celebrated lovers including Georgia O’Keefe, Josephine Baker and Leon Trotsky. 

Kahlo suffered from poor heath throughout her life due to spinal injuries from a 1925 bus accident in which she was impaled by a metal pole. Her right leg was amputated in 1953 due to gangrene; depressed and in failing health, Kahlo died the following year, likely by her own hand. A devastated Rivera described it as “the most tragic day of my life.” His own health declined rapidly and Rivera died three years later.

Rather than focus on the couple’s turbulent relationship, artistic achievements, or multitudinous romantic conquests, librettist Nilo Cruz has penned a fantastical, dream-like scenario, reflective of his plays, in which the deceased Frida returns from the underworld to the land of the living to visit her still-extant husband.

The Spanish-language opera begins on the Day of the Dead, when Diego visits a cemetery, reflecting on the departed Frida and pining for her return. Frida is initially skeptical of the ailing Rivera’s pleas but ultimately agrees. Her return is facilitated by Catrina, the “Keeper of the Dead,” who warns Frida that she can go back to Diego for 24 hours but must never touch him or the physical pains of her mortal existence will return. Frida and Diego are reunited and the happy couple returns to their beloved Casa Azul home where they revisit old times and Frida tries to paint. Ultimately, she cannot resist Diego’s repeated pleas for contact and, as she embraces him, her pain returns. Diego pleads with Catrina to allow Frida to take him to the afterlife; she assents and the couple enter the underworld together united in eternity.

That’s a lot to pack into two hours. Cruz’s scenario is a virtual inversion of the Orpheus and Euridice myth (where the husband rescues his wife from the underworld), which has inspired composers from Monteverdi and Gluck to Philip Glass and Matthew Aucoin.

El último sueño de Frida y Diego has much going for it: Frank’s compelling score, a strong cast, and a striking, at times visually stunning production. All elements came together Saturday to create a vivid, colorful and impressive night of theater.

Frank’s flowing, restless music is powerful, often haunting and eminently listenable. Even when the stage action was static or dragged, the crystalline timbres and iridescent scoring coming out of the pit consistently beguiled the ear.

And yet, paradoxically, engaging as Frank’s music is, there is little that sticks in the memory (an issue I’ve also had with Frank’s orchestral music). More crucially—and Cruz’s libretto bears some blame for this—there are no true musical peaks or standout solo moments for the singers. Yes, there are solos and a late quasi-duet for Frida and Diego. But they appear and go quickly in an efficiently scrolling theatrical canvas that doesn’t pause long enough for the singing to make a strong impact. At times Frida y Diego feels less like an opera than a Nilo Cruz play with intriguing incidental music.

Cruz’s libretto is more linear than the one he wrote for Bel Canto in 2015, a much ballyhooed Lyric Opera project, curated by Renée Fleming, that has yet to be revived anywhere. Yet the action is sometimes talky and the pace lumbering. Further the opera takes a rather superficial view of the artists; Frida and Diego seem like pieces moved around on a chessboard, shoehorned into a constraining framework that never really allows these volatile, fascinating individuals to burst forth in vivid life.

Some of Cruz’s dramatic devices also seem odd. Leonardo is an actor and drag queen who wants to impersonate Greta Garbo so he can return to life and entertain a friend who was obsessed with the Hollywood actress. This character seems to have waltzed in from La Cage aux Folles, and the subplot feels like padding, wholly extraneous to the artists’ lives. Wouldn’t it have been better to have a supporting character based on someone real and grounded in the couple’s actual lives—one of Frida’s famous lovers or perhaps a Diego political ally?

Ultimately, those who come to Lyric for a theatrical experience—which seems increasingly the case these days—will undoubtedly have an enjoyable evening. Those who come expecting a great opera will be disappointed.

(El último sueño de Frida y Diego, by the way, is not the only opera about the two Mexican artists. Robert Xavier Rodríguez’s Frida has been presented in Miami and elsewhere.)

Daniela Mack (Angela in The Listeners last season) could almost be mistaken for Frida’s double. The singer for the most part gave a compelling portrayal. Her wide vibrato—a recurring feature at Lyric Opera this spring—was distracting at times but the mezzo-soprano supplied ardent and fully committed vocalism in a challenging role that ranges from contralto-like low notes to coloratura soprano heights. Mack’s acting was worthy as well; the first act doesn’t allow much room for characterization, but the singer brought greater credibility and depth to Frida in Act II.

Alfredo Daza created Diego in the opera’s premiere, and is repeating the role for the third time in this production. There is a natural, lived-in quality to the Mexican singer’s portrayal of the ailing, lumpen painter who, despite the volatile relationship, still longs for his wife. Matching his bear-like presence, Daza’s burly baritone has some wear around the edges but it fits the character, and he rose to the dramatic moments with impressive strength in this Lyric debut.

As Catrina, tour guide for the dead, Ana María Martínez returned for her second Lyric appearance this season following Despina in Così fan tutte. She securely tackled the often punishing demands and high notes of this oddball role—part scary death queen and part officious hallway monitor (“Everyone get in line, get in line.”). Martínez had some fun with the campy character and made the most of her extended coloratura laughter when ridiculing Frida.

Key’mon Murrah made an admirable house debut as Leonardo, a role he created in San Diego, showing a surprisingly ample countertenor voice. Ryan Center members Finn Sagal, Daniel Luis Espinal and Benjamin R. Sokol proved a humorous and well-blended trio of Villagers who confront Rivera in the cemetery in the opening scene.

Frank’s rich and idiomatic choral writing provides some of the best music in the opera, and the Lyric Opera Chorus had much to do as townspeople and underworld inhabitants. Well prepared by Michael Black, the ensemble sang the Spanish text with polished and robust vocalism as well as handling their myriad stage movements fluently and naturally.

The production team provided the most consistently successful elements of the evening. Jorge Ballina’s scenic designs were vivid and remarkable, as with the candlelit cemetery where the lights ascend to hover over the underworld set. Also inspired were the moments in Act II when frames descend to capture Frida and Diego’s various portrait stances. The lighting by Victor Zapatero was equally assured and evocative.

Eloise Kazan’s costumes were varied, richly colorful, and often astonishing, as with the unnerving quasi-skeletal getup for Catrina. Director Lorena Maza, who helmed the opera’s debut, moved the often complex action seamlessly with ingenuity and easy professionalism.

Conductor Roberto Kalb made an outstanding Lyric Opera debut. Music director of Detroit Opera, Kalb was in the pit for the Frida y Diego premiere and his experience in the score was manifest.

Kalb led a firmly focused performance that moved with strong momentum while relaxing fluently into the more dreamy, impressionistic scenes. The conductor’s balancing was most impressive, allowing all of Frank’s kaleidoscopic scoring and varied hues and instrumental timbres to make audible impact.

El último sueño de Frida y Diego runs through April 4. Stephanie Sánchez sings the role of Frida April 1. lyricopera.org

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