When art transcends death: El último sueño de Frida y Diego opens at Lyric on Saturday, March 21

 
CHICAGO (3/20/2026) — Lyric Opera of Chicago’s 2025/26 Season continues with Gabriela Lena Frank and Nilo Cruz’s El último sueño de Frida y Diego (The Last Dream of Frida and Diego), on stage March 21 – April 4, 2026.

On the Day of the Dead, Frida Kahlo crosses from the underworld for 24 fleeting hours with Diego Rivera in this rapturous new opera sung in Spanish. Following its critically praised 2022 world premiere, this surrealist production brings Frida’s iconic art to vivid operatic life — with endlessly blooming marigolds, the jewel-toned walls of Casa Azul, and a love story that transcends death itself.

Musical America’s 2026 Composer of the Year Gabriela Lena Frank weaves Mexican folk traditions into a score that captures the surrealist beauty of Frida’s paintings, while Pulitzer Prize winner Nilo Cruz (Lyric’s world premiere of Bel Canto) crafts a poetic libretto as painterly as Frida’s canvases. Director Lorena Maza and conductor Roberto Kalb, both Mexican-born, make their Lyric debuts leading this celebration of Mexican artistic heritage.

Mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack stars as Frida, joined by baritone Alfredo Daza in his Lyric debut as Diego, soprano Ana María Martínez as Catrina, and countertenor Key'mon W. Murrah in his anticipated Lyric debut as Leonardo.

We hope audiences will join us for this enchanting opera — where memory and reality blur, where love defies death, and where 24 hours can become eternal. From the candlelit rituals of Día de Muertos to the surrealist dreamscape of Frida’s imagination, this is opera as visual poetry — a reminder that what we create outlives us all.
 
View El último sueño de Frida y Diego images here
 
A high-resolution video trailer will be available soon on Lyric's YouTube channel and in Lyric's online press room.
 
Read the digital program book of El último sueño de Frida y Diego before the performance.
 
Performance dates for El último sueño de Frida y Diego are March 21 at 7:30 p.m.; March 24 and 26 at 7:00 p.m.; and March 29, April 1, and 4 at 2:00 p.m. All performances take place at the Lyric Opera House, 20 North Wacker Drive, Chicago.

El último sueño de Frida y Diego is performed in Spanish, with easy-to-follow projected English titles above the stage.

A total running time of 2 hours and 15 minutes, including one intermission.
 
Audio description, a guided touch tour of the opera's sets and costumes, and SoundShirts are available at the Sunday, March 29 matinee performance. Braille and large-print programs, high-powered opera glasses, assistive listening devices, and booster seats are available from the theater’s Steiner Parquet coat checks at all performances. For more information on these and other accessibility assets, visit lyricopera.org/accessibility.
 
For information and tickets, call 312.827.5600 or go to lyricopera.org/frida.
 

Sponsors

Lyric’s presentation of Gabriela Lena Frank and Nilo Cruz’s El último sueño de Frida y Diego is generously made possible by the Zell Family Foundation, the Pritzker Foundation, and Ethel Gofen.

Lyric Opera of Chicago’s Chorus is generously sponsored by an Anonymous Lead Sponsor.

Lyric Opera's Season is presented by

Lyric Opera of Chicago thanks its Official Airline, United Airlines, and acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council.

United Airlines
Illinois Arts Council

About Lyric

About Lyric

Lyric Opera of Chicago is committed to redefining what it means to experience great opera. The company is driven to deliver consistently excellent artistry through innovative, relevant, celebratory programming that engages and energizes new and traditional audiences.

Under the leadership of General Director, President & CEO John Mangum and Music Director Enrique Mazzola, Lyric is dedicated to reflecting, and drawing strength from, the diversity of Chicago. Lyric offers, through innovation, collaboration, and evolving learning opportunities, ever-more exciting, accessible, and thought-provoking audience and community experiences. We also stand committed to training the artists of the future, through The Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center; and to becoming increasingly diverse across our audiences, staff, programming, and artists—magnifying the welcoming pull of our art form, our company, and our city.

Through the timeless power of voice, the splendor of a great orchestra and chorus, theater, dance, design, and truly magnificent stagecraft, Lyric is devoted to immersing audiences in worlds both familiar and unexpected, creating shared experiences that resonate long after the curtain comes down.

Join us @LyricOpera on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Threads and Facebook. #LongLivePassion

For more information on Lyric's upcoming 2024/25 Season, visit lyricopera.org/newseason.

Read More