American composer Gabriela Lena Frank's first opera, a magical-realist portrait of Mexico's painterly power couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, with libretto by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz, arrives at the Met. Fashioned as a reversal of the Orpheus and Euridice myth, the story depicts Frida, sung by leading mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, leaving the underworld on the Day of the Dead and reuniting with Diego, portrayed by baritone Carlos Álvarez.
Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Frank's "confident, richly imagined score" (The New Yorker) that "bursts with color and fresh individuality" (Los Angeles Times). The vibrant new production, taking enthusiastic inspiratio