Metropolitan Opera Announces Gabriela Lena Frank's El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego

Grammy Award–winning composer Gabriela Lena Frank’s first opera, El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego, with libretto by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Nilo Cruz, will have its Met premiere in a new production directed by Deborah Colker and conducted by Music Director Yannick Nezet-Seguin, May 14-June 5.

Frank and Cruz are both making their Met debuts. The production also concludes the 2025–26 season of The Met: Live in HD with a worldwide cinema transmission on May 30.

The opera, sung in Spanish, imagines Frida Kahlo returning from the underworld on the Mexican Day of the Dead to confront her unfaithful husband, Diego Rivera, and relive their tumultuous love.

Three-time Grammy Award–winning mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard stars as Kahlo, following her Met role debut earlier this season in the title role of Bizet’s Carmen, and baritone Carlos Álvarez co-stars as Rivera. The cast also features soprano Gabriella Reyes as Catrina, mistress of the underworld, and countertenor Nils Wanderer as Leonardo. Steven Osgood conducts the May 22 performance.

The creative team also includes set and co-costume designer Jon Bausor, co-costume designer Wilberth Gonzalez in his Met debut, and lighting designer Adam Silverman.

In conjunction with the Met premiere, the Museum of Modern Art presents Frida and Diego: The Last Dream, an exhibition of celebrated works by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, organized by MoMA’s Beverly Adams in collaboration with Bausor, and including designs from the opera, running March 29-September 12.