Operas in Concert: The Americas - Latine Culture and History
Gabriela Lena Frank/Nilo Cruz
Conquest Requiem is inspired by the true story of Malinche, a Nahua woman from the Gulf Coast of Mexico who was enslaved and given to the Spaniards as a young woman. She rose through society as an adept interpreter and ultimately became mistress to Hernán Cortés during his war against the Aztecs. As Frank observes, Malinche “has been variously viewed as feminist hero who saved countless lives, treacherous villain who facilitated genocide, conflicted victim of forces beyond her control, or as symbolic mother of the new mestizo people.” Frank and Cruz sensitively draw on Malinche’s story alongside excerpts from the Latin Mass for the Dead and Nahua poetry, creating an ambitious work for chorus, orchestra, and two soloists ripe for presentation on symphonic programs.
Soloists: Jessica Rivera, Andrew Garland
rehearsal, Houston Symphony Chorus
© Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera
Daniel Catán/Marcela Fuentes-Berain
Set aboard a steamship voyage down the Amazon for the opera diva Florencia Grimaldi’s long-awaited homecoming concert, Florencia is inspired by the magical realism of Gabriel García Márquez; its libretto is written by Márquez’s student Marcela Fuentes-Berain. Florencia was the first Spanish-language opera commissioned by a major American opera company and is a work that “fulfills one of opera’s highest duties: to leave the listener’s senses swooning” (New York Observer). Florencia was recently staged by The Metropolitan Opera in December 2023, where soprano Ailyn Pérez was lauded for her “wistful, tender and sincere” portrayal of the title role (The New York Times).
Soloists: Ailyn Pérez, Elizabeth Caballero (Florencia Grimaldi); Gabriella Reyes, Aléxa Anderson (Rosalba); Nancy Fabiola Herrer, Guadalupe Paz (Paula)
excerpt, Metropolitan Opera
Art’s Afterlives | Feminist Essays | Casting Off Chains: Abolition and the Civil War | The Americas: Latine Culture and History | East Asian Love Stories | Positively Medieval: Stories of the Middle Ages and Renaissance | Classics of English Fiction | The 19th Century: Great Wars and Colonial Sorrows | Upheavals of the 20th Century | The Weight of Motherhood