The Kansas City Opera closed its 2024-2025 season with the first ever mariachi opera: “Cruzar la Cara de la Luna” (“To Cross the Face of the Moon”). Though it premiered in 2010 (at the Houston Grand Opera), this intergenerational story of a Mexican family torn apart by migration is timelier and more resonant than ever.
The Lyric’s production features several of the originating cast, including baritone Octavio Moreno and mezzo-soprano Cecilia Duarte in the lead roles of the tragically separated Laurentino and Renata. Moreno manages to be sympathetic both as a young man who chooses adventure over family and as a regretful grandfather looking on his past. Duarte is compelling as his beautiful young wife — strong-willed, strong-minded, and never a victim.
When Laurentino is persuaded by his friend Chucho to join the adventure north to find work, there is little indication of the exigencies that impel the widespread migration that leaves their home village “a town without men” (the literal translation of the song “Un Pueblo sin Hombres”) In fact, the jolly song “Diez Veces Mas” (“Ten Times More”) depicts the young men’s journeys north as nearly a lark, motivated by the desire for “ten times more” money, food, clothing, and a “house ten times bigger.” All this, Chucho argues, will make them “ten times the man.” But at the song’s end Renata voices her resistance: she would rather have Laurentino stay home with her than have ten times anything.
Vanessa Alonzo is a standout as Renata’s best friend Lupita, her rich voice as gutsy and vivid as her character. Her fabulous mariachi-style yips and cries (“gritos”), particularly in “Un Pueblo sin Hombres” are a highlight of the evening. Tenor Daniel Montenegro’s intensity deepens his depiction of the abandoned first-born son, Rafael.
Grammy Award-winning mariachi band Mariachi los Camperos shine in their double role as backing ensemble and opera chorus, while making a striking onstage presence. Indeed, arrayed in handsome black charro suits and arrayed across three long platforms, they provide the primary stage setting, with atmospheric lighting and metaphoric flights of migrating Monarch butterflies doing most of the rest.
The genius of the opera is the coupling of story with mariachi. Lively and accessible, festive and theatrical, mariachi is rich ground for dramatization, as well as singing and dance. The name of the ensemble — Mariachi los Camperos — means The Countrymen, and its moments of unison power lift this family’s story to the universal and emblematic.
“Cruzar” also shows off mariachi’s versatility — it is both boisterous and wistful, melancholy and celebratory, playful and poignant. Its softer strains provide delicate support for the story’s intimate moments, from a farewell in a small Mexican village, a tragedy in the desert, or a hospital bedside in modern-day Kansas City.
It’s not only the topic that feels modern, it’s also the runtime. “Cruzar” is no five-hour Wagnerian saga, instead clocking in at a trim, intermission-less 75 minutes. This is a frankly welcome and possibly even necessary development for 21st century schedules and attention spans. However, fifty years and three generations is a lot to cover in just over an hour. Director Leonard Foglia and Mariachi los Camperos musical director Jesús Guzmán do a good job keeping the story moving, although the book does feel at times lightly sketched.
This wrenching story of separation is enriched by phenomenal performances, and warmed by the music of Mexico, the love of family, and the meaning of the word “home,” wherever that may be.
Reviewed Friday, March 7, 2025
“Cruzar la Cara de la Luna”
by José “Pepe” Martinez (music and lyrics) and Leonard Foglia (lyrics and book)
Remaining Performances:
Saturday, March 8, 2025, 7:30PM
Sunday, March 10, 2025, 2:00PM
