A set design by Jon Bausor for the Met premiere of Gabriela Lena Frank's "El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego."
Estimated Run Time: 2 hours and 50 minutes with one intermission
On May 30, the Metropolitan Opera’s 2025–26 Live in HD season comes to a close with a live transmission of 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. 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. The famously feuding pair briefly relive their tumultuous love, embracing both the passion and the pain before bidding the land of the living a final farewell. Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the Met-premiere staging of Frank’s opera, a “confident, richly imagined score” (The New Yorker) that “bursts with color and fresh individuality” (Los Angeles Times). The vibrant new production, taking enthusiastic inspiration from Frida and Diego’s paintings, is directed and choreographed by Deborah Colker.
This live cinema transmission is part of the Met’s award-winning Live in HD series, bringing opera to movie theaters across the globe.
Sponsors
The Met Opera simulcasts at Guild Hall are made possible in part through the generosity of:
Grand Tier: Louise and Howie Phanstiel, and Ellen E. Myers.
Dress Circle: Norma Giorgetti in memory of Mary-Anne Szabaga, Patti Kenner in memory of Judith and Gus Leiber, David Seeler and Ngaere Macray, Irene Silverman, and Norbert Weissberg.
Balcony Circle: Gabrielle Bamberger, Susan Blair, Arlene Bujese in memory of Marcel Bally, Hat Edwards, Jeannette and H. Peter Kriendler Charitable Trust, Joan Osborne, and Veronica Stephens.
We thank Ann and Gloria Cestone, in memoriam, for their love of opera.
Performing Arts programs are supported in part by Galia Meiri-Stawski and Axel Stawski, Henry and Peggy Schleiff, The Melville Straus Family Endowment, Monica and Peter Tessler, and Vital Projects Fund. Music Programming is supported in part by The Ellen and James S. Marcus Endowment for Musical Programming.
Additional support provided by Friends of the Theater: Natascia Ayers and Jim Ciquera, Bonnie and Joel Bergstein, Gene Bernstein and Kathy Walsh, John and Joan D’Addario, Suzanne and John Golden, Hilarie and Mitchell Morgan, Steve Pesner, in memory of his wife, Michèle Pesner, whose entire life was devoted to all aspects of culture, The Schaffner Family Foundation, Lisa Schultz and Ezriel Kornel, and Stacey and Oliver Stanton.