MoMA presents a special performance and conversation in conjunction with the MoMA exhibition Frida and Diego: The Last Dream and the Metropolitan Opera production El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego. Singers Isabel Leonard, Carlos Alvarez, Gabriela Reyes, and Nils Wanderer will perform music from the opera, followed by a discussion between composer Gabriela Lena Frank and librettist Nilo Cruz, moderated by musician, organizer, and educator Jocelyn de Freitas.
Frida and Diego: The Last Dream celebrates Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera in a first-of-its-kind collaboration with the Metropolitan Opera. Organized in conjunction with the Met’s new production of El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego, the presentation at MoMA features artworks by Kahlo and Rivera in an elaborate setting designed by Jon Bausor, the set and co-costume designer of the opera. For both the opera and installation, Bausor evokes the artists’ lives and artworks in his theatrical designs.
This event is free. RSVP is required.
Jocelyn de Freitas is a musician, educator, and performing arts professional who lives and works in New York City. De Freitas currently serves as the director of education and civic alliances for the Perelman Performing Arts Center, located across from the 9/11 Memorial on the World Trade Center site. De Freitas has nearly 20 years of experience in the arts and culture sector designing and leading educational arts programs and events, developing curricula, and collaborating with artists, institutions, and communities. De Freitas is Puerto Rican and Sicilian, and holds a master’s degree in piano performance from Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music and a master’s in education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Cuban-American playwright Nilo Cruz received the Pulitzer Prize for his 2002 play Anna in the Tropics. The play made its Broadway debut with Jimmy Smits in the lead role, and received a 2004 Tony nomination for Best Play. Cruz was born in Matanzas, Cuba. Cruz first became involved in theater in the 1980s as an actor. In 1988 he directed Mud, by Maria Irene Fornés, the only other Latin American ever nominated for a playwriting Pulitzer. Cruz’s other plays include The Beauty of the Father (2006), Lorca in a Green Dress (2003), Two Sisters and a Piano (1998), and Night Train to Bolina (1995). Cruz is the librettist for the newly debuted opera El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego.
Gabriela Lena Frank is an American pianist and composer of contemporary classical music. Frank is a member of the Silk Road Ensemble under the direction of cellist Yo Yo Ma. Her composition Ritmos Anchinos appears on the Silk Road Ensemble’s album Off the Map (2009). In 2017 Frank founded the Gabriela Lena Frank Creative Academy of Music, for emerging composers to work with renowned performers. In 2020 she received the 25th Annual Heinz Award in the Arts and Humanities for her work “weaving Latin American influences into classical constructs and breaking gender, disability and cultural barriers in classical music composition.” Frank is the composer for the newly debuted opera El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego.
Accessibility
For more information on accessibility at MoMA please visit moma.org/Visit/Accessibility.
This theater is equipped with an induction loop that transmits directly to hearing aids with T-coils.
The Ronald S. & Jo Carole Lauder entrance at 11 W 53rd Street is wheelchair accessible and has a power-assist door. Reserved and wheelchair-accessible seating is available in Titus Theater 1. Gallery stools, wheelchairs, and rollators are available by request at all Museum entrances, on a first-come, first-served basis.
Accessible and all-gender restrooms are located in the Titus 1 Lobby.
Guide dogs and other trained service animals are always welcome. Service animals may find relief outside of the Museum through the main entrance, and free reentry is available during the event.
American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation is available for public programs upon request with two weeks’ advance notice. MoMA will make every effort to provide accommodation for requests made with less than two weeks’ notice. Please contact [email protected] to make a request for these services.
Support for this program is provided by the Metropolitan Opera.
Leadership support for this exhibition is provided by Denise Littlefield Sobel, Steven and Lisa Tananbaum in honor of David Tananbaum, and Monique M. Schoen Warshaw.
Major funding is provided by Jerry Speyer and Katherine Farley and by the Steven A. and Lisa Tananbaum Endowment for Contemporary Art Commissions.
Additional support is provided by the Annual Exhibition Fund. Leadership contributions to the Annual Exhibition Fund, in support of the Museum’s collection and collection exhibitions, are generously provided by Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III, the Eyal and Marilyn Ofer Family Foundation, the Noel and Harriette Levine Endowment, Jerry Speyer and Katherine Farley, Alice and Tom Tisch, the Marella and Giovanni Agnelli Fund for Exhibitions, Eva and Glenn Dubin, Mimi Haas, the William Randolph Hearst Endowment Fund for Photography, The David Rockefeller Council, the Kate W. Cassidy Foundation, The Contemporary Arts Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz, Kenneth C. Griffin, The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art, Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis, and Ronald S. and Jo Carole Lauder. Major funding is provided by The Sundheim Family Foundation.