Opera about labor leader set to hit East Bay in ’23
West Edge Opera has commissioned composer Nicolas Lell Benavides and librettist Marella Martin Koch to write “Dolores,” an opera about the labor organizer and activist Dolores Huerta.
The piece is scheduled for a premiere in 2023.
The new opera grows out of Aperture, the public commissioning project that the East Bay company launched last year during the COVID-19 shutdown. During that project, a team of eight curators that included local figures from the worlds of opera and theater made selections from a pool of proposals while subscribers followed the ongoing deliberations through several months’ worth of newsletters and videos.
“Dolores” was one of eight finalists to make it through the vetting rounds. Other projects included “The School for Girls Who Lost Everything in the Fire,” a magic-realist fable by composer Ryan Suleiman and librettist Cristina Fríes; an operatic adaptation by composer Kamala Sankaram and librettist Mark Campbell of Abraham Verghese’s memoir “My Own Country”; and “The Battle
of Atlanta,” a piece by composer Damien Geter and librettist Lila Palmer based on the cyclorama of that title in the Atlanta History Museum.
“Dolores” will focus on the days surrounding the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, following a victory speech during which Huerta stood by his side. But the creators said the intent is to situate Huerta’s work on behalf of unionized farmworkers within a wider context.
“There was this feeling that Kennedy’s championing of the cause was key, and that his assassination would be a setback,” Benavides said. “But we wanted to show how Dolores picked up the pieces and rallied people and let them know that this wasn’t the endgame.”
Benavides knows the story well — Huerta is his cousin, and he grew up hearing tales of her life and work. He said he had been contemplating working the material into an opera since 2016.
“I’m biased because the story comes from my family, but I think it’s important to show a woman leading a social movement at a time when it was mostly all men who were in charge,” he said.
Koch and Benavides collaborated previously on “Gilberto,” an operatic portrait of the composer’s grandfather, an excerpt of which was showcased as part of West Edge’s “Snapshot” series in 2020.
“I’m really honored that he invited me to be part of this new piece,” Koch said. “With this project, even before we got the commission, we’ve been interviewing people and getting everything in position. It’s been hard
not to work on it because we care so much about the story.”
The $60,000 commission includes a series of workshops to be held during the coming year. Benavides and Koch said they currently have a plot synopsis, character list and two complete scenes, but there are still plenty of decisions to be made — including whether to depict the Kennedy assassination onstage.