Posted: March 11, 2015 at 11 a.m.

I’m not an opera critic; I wouldn’t know bel canto from Belle Tire, so if you seek an evaluation that encompasses the fine points of Michigan Opera Theatre’s production of Robert Xavier Rodriguez’s “Frida,” may I recommend Mark Stryker’s critique in the Free Press (I won’t read it until I’ve filed this review, but I trust his expertise.)

However, there’s a reason MOT chooses to incorporate “Theatre” in its name, and that explains my presence at the Macomb Center Saturday night for the Detroit premiere of Rodriguez’s 1991 opera, a daring work of art, unsettling and unforgettable.

A musical biography of artist Frida Kahlo and, after the first three scenes, of fellow artist, later her husband, Diego Rivera, “Frida” is most assuredly an opera, but like Gershwin’s “Porgy and Bess” it might not be out of place on a Broadway stage.

Nor would it be out of place at an art museum. As befits an opera about art it has powerful visual elements, at once stark and sumptuous, the work of production designer Monika Essen (sets, costumes and props) who incorporates paintings by Kahlo and Rivera in her design. Near center stage is a stunning construction of a human heart inspired by Kahlo’s work, its veins and arteries reaching upward and over toward the branches at stage right.

As the story progresses, works by Kahlo and Rivera appear as video projections on a rhomboid screen. And what a story it is. Ironically, the opera begins with silence, as a dancer moves across the stage and picks up a concertina. Soon, there are three dancers and eventually two of them awkwardly intertwine, perhaps presaging the complicated relationship between Kahlo and Rivera.

Kahlo, as she did in real life, survives a horrendous bus crash as a young woman in 1925 that leaves her with many bones broken, other serious injuries and a lifetime of pain and operations. The opera – book by Hilary Blecher, lyrics and monologues by Migdalia Cruz – implies that Kahlo began to paint in her hospital bed.

A few years later she meets Rivera, already renowned, and together they become world famous, interacting, often uneasily with everyone from Rockefellers and Fords to Leon Trotsky. Speaking of Fords, and of particular interest to Detroiters, nothing is mentioned of the 11 months (1932-1933) the couple spent here while Rivera was painting the Detroit Industry murals at the DIA.

Instead, “Frida” takes the couple from their native Mexico directly to New York where Rivera’s paints murals at Rockefeller Center only to see them ordered destroyed (he is paid his commission) for their Communist imagery. Kahlo remains her own woman throughout a tumultuous, tempestuous life, a life “Frida” celebrates, but never sugarcoats.

As the title character, soprano Catalina Cuervo sings with impressive range and power, acts with conviction and, in a bathtub scene, sings while topless and, even more courageous, lying down. Bass baritone Ricardo Herrera plays Rivera with a gentle swagger, if such a thing is possible, and a voice of warmth and richness.

Suzanne Mallare Acton ably conducts an 11-piece orchestra through music that sounds difficult and unconventional compared to traditional opera or musical theater scores. The lyrics may rhyme but the music…doesn’t. You won’t leave humming, but you will leave intrigued, thoughtful, and more than a little moved.

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SHOW DETAILS:
“Frida”
Michigan Opera Theatre

Macomb Center for the Performing Arts
44575 Garfield Road, Clinton Township, MI USA 48038-1139
7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 7
2:30 p.m. Sunday, March 8

The Berman Center for the Performing Arts
Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan Detroit
6600 W. Maple Rd., West Bloomfield, MI 48322
7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 21
2:30 p.m. Sunday, March 22

The Detroit Film Theatre
Detroit Institute of Arts
5200 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, Michigan 48202
7:30 p.m. Friday, March 27 (New performance added)
7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 28 (Sold out)

$55-65
313-237-7464
www.michiganopera.orgW