Juana: Not Merry

Opera-makers must be constantly on the hunt for really heavy drama. How about a 17th-century Mexican lesbian nun poet-philosopher persecuted by the Inquisition? Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz has been a fascinating character for academics for years now, but her story's still just getting out to the general public. Dr. Alicia Gaspar de Alba's book Sor Juana's Second Dream inspired opera creator Carla Lucero to write an opera about the fierce historical babe, and we plebes can now get bug-eyed at a workshop production of Juana. The work is sung in Spanish with English supertitles, and features Martha Rodriguez Salazar, Elena Krell, John Kendall Bailey, and many others. The title character dies while nursing her friends and fellow nuns, who suffer from a mysterious disease. Yet her baroque love poems – all the rage in Spain while she lay dying -- live on.
Fri., Oct. 12, 8 p.m.; Sat., Oct. 13, 8 p.m., 2007