Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera: The Last Dream
MoMA and the Metropolitan Opera team up
We went to see Frida and Diego: The Last Dream at MoMA just before it officially opened. The exhibition is not subtle about what it is trying to do. It’s a marketing gambit for the Metropolitan Opera. But hey, what’s wrong with one cultural institution supporting another?
As intended, the setting is theatrical. Upon entering a dimly lit space, a recording from the Met’s new production, El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego, provides the soundtrack. This opera marks the debut of American composer Gabriela Lena Frank’s first opera (at the Met no less). Conceived as a magical-realist portrait of Mexico’s painterly power couple Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, the libretto is by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Nilo Cruz.
A maquette of the set is brightly lit in the dim setting, to draw you to it. That lighting theme is carried out throughout the small exhibit, but is reserved for Kahlo’s work, not Rivera’s, which is a not-so-subtle way of calling more attention to her work. In fairness, there are far fewer pieces of Kahlo’s in the exhibit than Rivera’s—which seems to be more a function of the number of pieces of each artist’s work that is held in the MoMA permanent collection.
The artworks themselves are “backstage” in the exhibit, perhaps showing us how the art itself influenced the artists involved in El Último Sueño de Frida y Diego. You pass through curtains to see the innerworkings of the opera, with a wooden structure—like the framing of a set—with art mounted on it.
The installation is an interpretation built around the performance. The opera’s premise centers on Rivera near the end of his life, summoning Kahlo back from the dead on the Day of the Dead.
Backstage, there is a replica of the tree from the maquette, but this time, life-sized with a mirror overhead. The tree of life and we are reflected in it? Music from Frank’s score continues throughout, moving between the worlds of the living, the dead, and art itself.
The lighting is deliberate. Kahlo’s paintings have far more concentrated light. Nearly glowing, like they are lit from within, closer to stage lighting than standard gallery lighting. Kahlo fans will approve of the way her work outshines her husband’s.
There are paintings by Rivera, but also many of his drawings, some studies for his larger works. I find there is something far more direct about the drawings. Finished works carry presence, but drawings show the process.
At times, the small exhibit works well, at others it feels overly controlled. Very unsubtly, it tells you how to look, and how to understand the relationship between the work, the people and the performance.
Then the fire alarm went off. As we all moved out of the space, whatever sense of immersion evaporated.
Less about individual works and more about how those works are framed, Frida and Diego: The Last Dream places painting, set design, and performance into the same system and asks you to experience them together.
A marketer’s dream.