Playwright Nilo Cruz and composer Gabriela Lena Frank have collaborated so many times it would be easy to assume that their 2022 opera, El Ultimo Sueño de Frida y Diego (The Last Dream of Frida and Diego), would be their most recent work.

In reality it is the work that first brought them together more than a dozen years ago. El Ultimo Sueño had its world premiere last October at San Diego Opera. In June of this year it was performed at San Francisco Opera. This Saturday it will open at LA Opera where it runs through December 9th.

Cruz and Frank’s opera finds Frida Kahlo (Daniela Mack) having already passed away. Diego Rivera (Alfredo Daza) is on the cusp of passing away but wants his beloved Frida to come back from the underworld to help him in his transition to the afterlife. She’s very reluctant to do so given the pain he caused her in her life. The opera is set around Dia de Muertos (Day of the Dead). Think of the opera as the Orpheus and Eurydice myth reversed with a healthy dash of the animated film Coco.

Cuban-born Cruz is best-known as a playwright. In 2003 he won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his play Anna in the Tropics. His other works include Dancing on Her Knees; Two Sisters and a Piano; Hortensia and the Museum of Dreams; Lorca in a Green Dress and A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. His collaborations with Frank include The Conquest Requiem and The Santos Oratorio and the text of orchestral songs, La Centinela y la paloma.

Earlier this week I spoke with Cruz who was at his home in Florida. During our conversation we talked about the challenges of breathing new life into Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera given how much has already been written about them; the new-found politics that are represented by a character they created for the opera and about the nature of art and creativity.

What follows are excerpts from our conversation that have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Is there a difference in the way Cuba, or Cubans in particular, feel about Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo that maybe is different than how they are perceived in the States or elsewhere? 

It’s hard for me to know because I left Cuba when I was so young. I left when I was ten years old. But they’re great revolutionaries and they were socialists. A few writers in Cuba have written about them in the theater. I believe they’re embraced by by the island, by people on the island, of course. But who doesn’t love them? Who cares, you know, about their political affinities? They’re just people you want to love because of the art they produced and what they give to the world.

Underneath the acrimony and history that exists between Frida and Diego in the opera, this is truly a love story. What was key for you in realizing the best way to dramatize that love story?

I believe it was when I read that at the end of his life Diego Rivera requested his ashes to be reunited with Frida’s ashes. Talk about a great love story. He wants to be in the in afterworld with Frida. That was so touching when I read that I thought this needs to be a love story and it needs to be a love story in which the Day of the Dead is involved.

They were soulmates. They were kindred spirits. Even though they had relationships with other men and women, they really loved each other. They caused each other a lot of pain. Unfortunately other things happened along the way, but they should have been together from the beginning and to the end. But human beings are full of faults and this is what makes the story so compelling in many ways for an opera and for the theater.

What was most important to you and Gabriela to make this a different way of telling this story or revealing who these people were as you wanted to depict them?

When Gabriela approached me with the subject matter, I had a little bit of resistance at the beginning because there was so much out there about them. But when I sat down and listened to her music, she had a piece that had to do with The Day of the Dead. I said to her, let’s not write a biopic or a biographical opera about them. Let’s go in this direction because they both adored that holiday. I thought this is the way to enter this opera. When I was remembering Orpheus, the operas, and the beautiful myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, I thought let’s do something similar to that.

There have been countless Orpheus operas and most recently there’s Matthew Aucoin‘s opera, Eurydice, based on the play of the same name that looks at this story from her point of view. The musical Hadestown deals with that myth. Do you think we’re living in a time where we all clamor for really great love stories, even if they don’t end up together? 

I think that we have become so cynical that we need something else in order to believe in love again. That’s what we do in this opera. That’s what I’m always doing with my work. Whether the plays are political, there’s always a love story there in between the lines and the lives of the characters.

You’ve collaborated many times with Gabriela well before this particular opera. Of all the collaborations that you’ve done with her, what makes this particular work unique for you?

This is the work that brought us together. Unfortunately it took years for us to work on the opera. In the meantime, we started to work on other things and those projects became preparations for us to work on this large canvas. We were always dialoging, even we were doing other pieces together, about Frida and Diego. It allowed me to become a better librettist. It allowed Gabriela to explore her music and her talents as a composer. So I think we were always preparing for this.

At the time of the opera’s world premiere in San Diego, director Lorena Maza told KPBS that as a creative team you asked yourselves “what are Diego and Frida for us now.” Who are they for you today as opposed to maybe who they were before you started this project? 

Oh, they’re still the same for me. I feel enormous amount of love for the two of them. I think Frida and Diego don’t just belong to Mexico, they belong to the world. So for me nothing has changed. If anything it is more the responsibility of exposing them to more people, even though they don’t need that exposure. They were great artists who gave great treasures to the world. For me it was just honoring them, honoring their love for each other, honoring their beliefs in life and what they gave us in terms of their paintings. 

There’s only one true duet between the two of them in the opera. Was that an intentional part of the structure that this moment became so emotional that this was the only time where these two would sing together? 

We thought that politics would bring them together. Especially when they started to look at the world around them. That, in some ways, made them reflect on some of the things that they loved in life. They wanted the universe to change. They wanted things to change in Mexico and all over the world. That, of course, caused us to write a a duet. It’s really the moment in which they almost come close to each other, but somehow they don’t.

Do you think that passion was equal to the passion they had for each other?

I think that passion, their love for each other, art and politics were all intertwined when it came to Frida and Diego.

Tell me about the creation of the characters of Katrina (Ana María Martínez) and Leonardo (Key’mon W. Murrah)?

Katrina is the keeper of the dead. She’s the gatekeeper. She was very helpful to navigate between the two worlds. Then Leonardo, who possesses the male and the female in the way he presents himself in life, I thought would be very interesting to do. He’s an artist luring Frida back to the world. I didn’t think that Frida would come back to the world just because of her passion for Diego. I think it needed to be something more, and it had to do with her passion for art.

It’s a very consuming art form. I think that all artists are this way. It’s not the time that we spend working on our art, but all the time we spend away from it. We’re also thinking about it. For her, because she was such a passionate painter, I think there needed to be another artist to convince her to come back to the world. Of course, Katrina was sort of the antagonist in some ways because we needed an antagonist as well. These were the things that were circling me when I was writing the libretto.

When you started working on this opera you probably didn’t think that the idea of a drag character would become a political statement. But given everything that’s going on in the United States has Leonardo turned out to be a political character? And when something like that happens to a work that you’ve created, where it takes on a different meaning now than you intended, how does that land with you as an artist?

That’s the beauty of art: that it continues to grow throughout time. When we saw it in San Diego and later in San Francisco, I started to see that character in a different light. With everything that’s happened, what was happening, what is still happening, especially since I’m in Florida, I thought, how wonderful that we chose this character that not only has a role to play in this world of Frida and Diego, but also for our modern times as well. Being such a beautiful character, such a generous human being who is passionate about life and the world. Even though he’s probably, or they, I should say, gone through difficult times, there’s still this love for the world.

Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine brought the interior and the exterior world of an artist’s life on stage beautifully in Sunday in the Park with George. John Logan did the same thing with Rothko in his play, Red. What are the inherent challenges for any writer who is also an artist to bring both an artist’s exterior and interior worlds to vibrant life on stage?

Sunday in the Park with George was very inspirational for me. If you think about it my source of inspiration’s really the paintings by both Frida and Diego. Usually those who write about artists, especially if you’re writing an opera or you’re writing a book – unless you’re writing a non-fiction book – I think one needs to tap not only into the the biography of the artist, but you also need to tap into your own imagination and your own take of what the role of the artist is in the world. I think art can save and I think art can offer possibilities.

Is it important for you to see yourself in the people that you’re writing about?

I think there’s always something of the personal in my work. There has to be somehow. I think plays are like children. They are pieces that we create, and, of course, they inherit some of our sensibilities. I don’t mind that at all.

There’s a real economy of words in your libretto. Late in the opera Diego sings “To paint is to remember” and Frida responds “To paint is to relieve the hurt.” How would you describe what the act of creation is for you?

I think it’s a struggle. It’s a struggle to find the word. Sometimes writing is about not finding the word, but what you encounter in between your search for the word. So it is a struggle. It’s almost nightmarish sometimes, too, because you ask more of yourself and the piece asks more of you. You don’t want to repeat yourself. And if you repeat yourself, you try to repeat yourself in a different way or with different colors. So I think the art form is very, very demanding. But more than anything, that it’s not to impose yourself on the piece, but to learn from the piece and what the piece is asking of you as an artist. To be in that state of mind and to be open to it.

Main Photo: Daniela Mack and Alfredo Daza in El Ultimo Sueño de Frida y Diego by Gabriela Lena Frank and Nilo Cruz at LA Opera (Photo by Cory Weaver/Courtesy LA Opera)

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Before I go too far, I’m keenly aware that I was one of Stephen Sondheim thousands of friends. There are certainly people who knew him better and more intimately. I was just surprised, humbled and thrilled that I could call this giant of musical theater Steve.

Since first discovering Sondheim and his music, I was familiar with his passion for puzzles and games. It made sense, at least to me, that he would therefore enjoy going to The Magic Castle. I was a member at the time, so I sent him a letter inviting him to join me coinciding with his making some appearances on the West Coast.

Mr. Sondheim’s response came via e-mail. “My time really isn’t my own,” he said of this upcoming trip. He did say that on another trip he’d love to revisit the club having only been once previously as Carl Ballantine’s guest. (Ballantine was a world-class magician, but many know him from his role as Lester Gruber on McHale’s Navy.)

It was unfortunate that he wouldn’t be available, but I held in my hand a golden ticket to future conversations: Stephen Sondheim’s e-mail.

As another event came up in early 2008, I reached out to Sondheim. He accepted my invitation and plans were made to go on Friday, January 13th. Joining us for lunch (on the only day when lunch is served there) would be Frank Rich, then of the New York Times, his wife, Alex Witchel and possibly Steve’s then-partner (now husband), Jeff Romley.

Jeff did not join us. In his place was playwright John Logan who would go on to win a Tony Award for his play, Red. He also adapted the Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler musical Sweeney Todd for film.

Mr. Sondheim immediately insisted I call him Steve when we met face-to-face. I couldn’t believe I was sitting across the table from the man who had written so many musicals I had loved. The three hours flew by quickly before Steve told me that had another appointment to get to at Barbra’s house.

I remained in contact with Steve. He invited me to his home on three occasions for wine and conversation. The first visit lasted over two hours. It was there that he asked me how I became familiar with his work.

As I usually do when asked about my passion for musical theater I responded by telling him it started when I saw A Chorus Line. Before I could finish the story he joked, “One of my best shows.” I told him that my aunt taking me to that musical opened up the world of musical theatre for me. But it was seeing Sweeney Todd in Los Angeles with Angela Lansbury and George Hearn that felt like finding religion.

He couldn’t have been more generous with his time on each of these occasions. He told me whenever I wanted to see one of his shows that all I had to do was reach out to him and he would make sure I could purchase house seats.

For over thirteen years I would send Steve a note here or there and he would respond. Like so many who have commented since his passing, I was so excited whenever there was a letter from Steve in the mail.

The last note I got from him was earlier this year. I had sent him a letter thanking him for his kindness and generosity over the years and to wish him a happy 91st birthday.

I concluded the letter by saying:

“It is my hope that when the world finally rights itself and we are able to travel and see people freely, that we will have the chance to see each other face-to-face. Not knowing when that will be, I wanted to make sure you know how grateful I am.”

In typical Sondheim fashion, I got a polite and to-the-point response from him. What stood out to me was, “As always.”

Last Friday was tough. I imagined, perhaps fantasized, that we would have one more conversation in person. Another glass of wine to be shared. Another letter in the mail.

Through his work and by virtue of who he was, Stephen Sondheim was “the god-damnd’est thing that has happened to me.”

Thank you my friend. The music and the memories will last me through the rest of my days.

Photo: Christian Witkin for The Wall Street Journal (Courtesy WSJ)

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Frankenstein – National Theatre Live – Now – May 7th/May 8th

In 2011 Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting) directed a production of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein that had been written by Nick Dear. Starring in the play were Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller. What made this production interesting is that Cumberbatch and Miller alternated playing The Creature and Victor Frankenstein.

This week you won’t have to choose which one you see, because National Theatre Live is making both versions available. If you want to see Cumberbatch as The Creature go to this YouTube page. Keep in mind that this version is only available until May 7th.

If you want to see Johnny Lee Miller as The Creature go to this YouTube page. This version will remain available until May 8th.

Of course, you don’t have to choose. You could watch both.

Frankenstein runs 2 hours and is recommended for audiences 12 years and older.

Schubert’s Winterreise – May 1st – May 3rd – Carnegie Hall Website and Medici.tv

Fresh off the success of their Live with Carnegie Hall series on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the organization has started a new program to help you get through the weekend.

Carnegie Hall Fridays launches today with a weekly series of concerts that will be available for viewing on their own website and also on medici.tv.

The series launches with a 2019 concert by mezzo soprano Joyce DiDonato performing Schubert’s Winterreise. She is accompanied on the piano by Metropolitan Opera conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin.

Each performance becomes available at 3 AM EDT/12 AM PDT on Friday through 3 AM EDT/12 AM PDT Monday.

Upcoming concerts will include performances by Martha Argerich, Anne Sophie Mutter, Daniil Trifonov, Yuja Wang and Philip Glass with such conductors as Daniel Barenboim, Gustavo Dudamel, Valery Gergiev and Michael Tilson Thomas.

Georgia Stitt and Friends – May 1st – 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT – Playbill.Com

Last week we published an interview with singer/songwriter/musician Georgia Stitt about her new album, A Quiet Revolution. Today is the official release date of physical copies of the record and to celebrate she is doing an album release concert on Playbill.com. Joining for the concert are Kate Baldwin, Brandon Victor Dixon, Jeremy Jordan and Jessica Vosk.

Good luck keeping your eyes dry during Jeremy Jordan’s performance. Just a word to the wise.

Sunshine Concerts – May 2nd – 6:00 PM EDT/3 PM PDT

Laura Benanti, the Tony Award-winning actress, wanted to support school children who were unable to perform in their school musicals by encouraging them to send in videos of the songs they were to perform. To perhaps everyone’s surprise she got thousands of videos.

Benanti and Kate Detier-Maradei assembled the best of those submissions to distribute to senior living communities, children’s hospitals, pediatric units and more.

On Saturday everyone will have a chance to watch the best of the videos on Sunshinesongs.com and also on Laura Benanti’s YouTube page. This is not a fundraiser. It is a celebration of the passion and enthusiasm of students who get an alternate way of sharing their gifts with us all.

Laura Benanti got her start in school musicals. Who knows, we might just get an early glimpse at the next big Broadway star. #SunshineSongs

Red – Great Performances on PBS – May 2nd – check local listings

If you have yet to check out Alfred Molina’s towering performance as Mark Rothko in John Logan’s Tony Award-winning play, Red, this is an opportunity you can’t miss. Molina gives another great performance (because when doesn’t he?) in this two-character play that takes place at the time of Rothko’s commission to create murals for New York’s Four Seasons Restaurant.

Co-starring as his assistant, Ken, is Alfred Enoch.

Duruflé and Trumbore – Los Angeles Master Chorale – May 3rd

In their continuing Sundays at Seven series, the LA Master Chorale is making available the audio from this 2019 concert which found Associate Conductor Jenny Wong leading the ensemble in a performance of Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem Op. 9 and Dale Trumbore’s How to Go On.

This audio-only release runs approximately 90 minutes and employs 48 singers and a chamber orchestra. The soloists for the Duruflé are Jessie Shulman, mezzo-soprano and Chung Uk Lee, bass-baritone.

The soloists for How to Go On are Kelci Hahn, soprano; Bethanie Peregrine, soprano; Callista Hoffman-Campbell, mezzo-soprano; Sarah Lynch, mezzo-soprano; Adriana Manfredi, mezzo-soprano; Ilana Summers, mezzo-soprano; Jimmy Traum, tenor; Scott Graff, baritone; James Hayden, bass.

Los Angeles Philharmonic Concert Series – May 3rd – KUSC

KUSC Radio is airing recordings of concerts by the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall every Sunday through June 21st. And if you don’t catch the 10 PM EDT/7 PM PDT broadcast, you will be able to stream it at your leisure for one week after the broadcast.

This week’s concert took place October 12th and 13th in 2019. Gustavo Dudamel leads the LA Phil in performances of Chávez’s Symphony No. 2 (Sinfonia India), Esteban Benzecry’s Piano Concerto (Universos infinitos), Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man and Rodeo. Sergio Tiempo is the soloist for the concerto.

If you go to the website before Sunday’s broadcast, you can still catch Dudamel and the LA Phil in another program from October 2019 that featured Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, Gershwin’s Concerto in F (with Jean-Yves Thibaudet as the soloist), Previn’s Can Spring Be Far Behind? and Copland’s Appalachian Spring Suite.

Reminders:

You can still catch the Stephen Sondheim 90th Birthday Concert Take Me to the World on this YouTube page.

LA Opera is streaming a 2018 production of Du Yun’s Pulitzer-Prize winning opera Angel’s Bone on May 1st at 11 PM EDT/8 PM PDT.

The Metropolitan Opera has Aida with Leontyne Price in her farewell performance available on May 1st; Verdi’s Luisa Miller on May 2nd and Borodin’s Prince Igor on May 3rd.

With all these Culture Best Bets at Home May 1st – 3rd, who will have time to be bored? Or see them all?

Main Photo: Johnny Lee Miller in Frankenstein (Photo by Catherine Ashmore/Courtesy of National Theatre Live)

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In alphabetical order the five Great Performances shows available are:

Harold Prince: The Director’s Life

Lonny Price, who appeared in Merrily We Roll Along, directed this documentary which is a look at the man who directed and produced that show, Harold Prince.

Prince, who passed away last July, had an unparalleled career that included such Broadway shows as The Pajama Game, West Side Story, Cabaret and many Sondheim musicals including Company, Follies, A Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd. In some cases he produced the shows; in others he directed them and in still others he both produced and directed the shows.

Amongst those making an appearance in this documentary are Sondheim, Angela Lansbury, Andrew Lloyd Webber (Prince directed Phantom of the Opera), Mandy Patinkin, composer John Kander and Prince himself.

Harold Prince: The Director’s Life runs approximately 83 minutes.

Much Ado About Nothing

We’ve previously written about this production of Much Ado About Nothing. Directed by Tony Award-winner Kenny Leon, this production comes from The Public Theatre’s Shakespeare in the Park series. The show was part of the 2019 season.

Danielle Brooks (Clemency) and Grantham Coleman (The Americans) star as battling lovers Beatrice and Benedick. It is an all-Black cast playing the characters as Black characters. Leon has put together a very contemporary and timely (in the #MeToo era) production that earned rave reviews.

Much Ado About Nothing runs approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes

Noël Coward’s Present Laughter

Kevin Kline won the 2017 Tony Award and Drama Desk Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance as Garry Essendine in Noël Coward’s uproarious comedy. Joining him in this production are Kate Burton (The Constant Wife), Kristine Nielsen (Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike) and Cobie Smulders (How I Met Your Mother).

Present Laughter first appeared on Broadway in 1946 and has proven quite attractive to actors who love farce.

Essendine is a well-known British staged actor whose adoring fans are ravenous. So are the people in his life including a woman with stars in her eyes, his ex-wife, an up ‘n’ coming playwright, Essendine’s friend’s wife, a secretary and others who all surround him as he nears his 40th birthday and a trip to Africa.

This is perfect material for Kline and for those seeking humor this is a must-see.

Present Laughter runs approximately 2 hours and 14 minutes.

Red

When John Logan’s play about artist Mark Rothko first appeared in London at the Donmar Warehouse in 2009, it was inevitable that the play would transfer to Broadway. It did in 2010 with original cast members Alfred Molina as Rothko and Eddie Redmayne as a fictional assistant.

Red was nominated for 7 Tony Awards and won six of them including Best Play for Logan. He was the creator of Showtime’s Penny Dreadful.

Logan’s play takes place as Rothko has the commission to create the murals for the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York. It’s a tight play that gives both actors great parts. I saw the show with Molina at the Mark Taper Forum in 2012 with Jonathan Groff as his assistant. It’s a terrific play.

This filmed version of the play features Molina with Alfred Enoch as his assistant.

Red runs approximately 93 minutes.

Sound of Music

Just as the United States has done live television versions of musicals, so has the UK. This production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s beloved musical dates to 2015. Starring as Maria is Kara Tointon (The Man in the White Suite) and Captain Von Trapp is played by Julian Ovenden (Sunday in the Park with George and Downton Abbey).

This production went out live, was sung live and took place all on a soundstage. If you don’t know the story of the Von Trapp Family and how they escaped the rise of the Nazi’s, let me just say it’s more complicated than Do-Re-Mi.

Sound of Music runs approximately 2 hours

Main photo: Alfred Molina and Alfred Enoch in “Red” (Photo by Johan Persson/Courtesy of PBS)

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In 2013, rock musician/actor Sting released his first album of new material in a decade. It was a song cycle meant as part of a theatre piece. In 2014 the musical The Last Ship (also the name of the album) made is debut on Broadway. The touring production of the show just concluded its run at the Ahmanson Theatre and opens this week at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre. The musical will run there from February 20th to March 22nd.

A little backstory before getting into the show itself. When The Last Ship opened at the Neil Simon Theatre, Jimmy Nail was playing the role of Jackie White. Ticket sales weren’t quite what everyone had hoped and slightly more than two months after opening, Nail was replaced by Sting in an effort to boost the box office. Those efforts did not succeed and the last show of The Last Ship was on January  24, 2015 after a run of only 105 performances (not counting previews of which there were 29.)

Sting returns to the part for this tour (which will also include at stop at San Francisco’s Golden Gate Theatre immediately after closing in Los Angeles.)

The Last Ship follows Gideon Fletcher (Oliver Savile) in Wallsend, North East England in 1986. He’s been away at sea for a decade-and-a-half. When he returns he finds he woman he loved, Meg Dawson (Frances McNamee) has moved on. He also discovers that the shipyard that gave the town its life and purpose is closing.  Jackie White (Sting) is a foreman who wants to see his men finish one last ship before that happens.

All the songs in the musical were written by Sting. The Last Ship features a new book by Lorne Campbell. The original book was written by John Logan and Brian Yorkey. Campbell is also the director of the show.

Here’s the good news. The show has been significantly reworked since its Broadway run. I didn’t see the show there ,but did attend yesterday’s opening night. The Last Ship has terrific songs, wonderful performances (and kudos to the casting director Beth Eden who put together not just a talented ensemble, but one that genuinely looks like they work in ship building in Northern England) and while it might be a tad long, it is still involving. The Last Ship is certainly far better than its history would suggest.

Once this mini-tour of The Last Ship is completed, Sting will begin a residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas on May 22nd.

For more information, check out our interviews with Frances McNamee and Oliver Savile.

The Last Ship runs 2 hours and 40 minutes with one intermission.

For tickets go here.

Update: This post has been updated after seeing a performance of the show. 

2nd Update:  This post has been updated for its run in San Francisco and also includes links to interviews with  cast members Frances McNamee and Oliver Savile.

Photo: Oliver Savile and Sting in The Last Ship (Photo by Matthew Murphy/Courtesy of Center Theatre Group)

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