Minnesota Opera to stage powerful mariachi opera 'Cruzar la Cara de la Luna'

A new art form was born when Anthony Freud, general director of the Houston Grand Opera, attended a concert by Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán. Among the world's most celebrated purveyors of the traditional Mexican folk style of mariachi since 1897, the group reportedly blew Freud away with its energy and musicianship.

So much so that Freud approached the band's leader, José "Pepe" Martínez, about composing a mariachi opera that could be premiered by Houston Grand Opera. With librettist Leonard Foglia, Martínez wrote "Cruzar la Cara de la Luna" — or "To Cross the Face of the Moon" — an emotionally powerful work about a dying man's wish to reunite a family that lives on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Now Minnesota Opera will celebrate the company's 60th anniversary by opening its season Saturday with the opera. Presented at St. Paul's Ordway Music Theater, it's a fascinating hybrid that features three of the principal performers from the opera's 2010 premiere.

"This is a dream I didn't know I had," said Ivan Fontanez, a Twin Citian who plays guitar in the wandering mariachi trio that acts as something of a Greek chorus in the opera, accompanying singers as they unspool the tale. "I'm not a classically trained musician. I'm a street musician. I never planned to be in an opera."

Nor did Israel Aranda, who plucks the low-voiced, cello-sized guitarrón in the trio. Also locally based, Aranda grew up in Houston, where he and singer Vanessa Alonzo met and became friends in a middle school mariachi program.

Alonzo has gone on to become a much-decorated mariachi singer who toured with Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán and has been among the principal characters in every production of "Cruzar la Cara de la Luna," from New York City Opera to Lyric Opera of Chicago to Paris to Ecuador.

"I remember Israel and I sitting out on the school steps pretending to be opera singers," she said. "And here we are doing mariachi opera."

And there are more. Pepe Martínez went on to compose "El Pasado Nunca se Termina (The Past Is Never Finished)" before his death in 2016. Then his son, Javier Martínez, composed a prequel to "Cruzar la Cara de la Luna" called "El Milagro del Recuerdo (The Miracle of Remembering)." Alonzo has been in all of them.

Also involved in the creation of each has been conductor David Hanlon, who has crafted fresh orchestrations for Minnesota Opera's production.

"We were all just figuring it out from the beginning," Hanlon said. "No one handed us the rules on how to create a mariachi opera. So a lot of the decisions we made came out of the very particular people with whom we were working."

One of them was Octavio Moreno, who sings the central role of Laurentino.

"Octavio was a mariachi before he was an opera singer," Hanlon said. "So I'll still sometimes go back to him and ask if something I'd like to do works or if it's a mariachi mistake."

"This opera's been a great thing for the mariachi community," Alonzo said. "I want to see it done in more countries. For example, Japan has a mariachi, Mariachi Samurai. We found there was a mariachi group from Croatia."

"I was in Austria, there was a mariachi there," Aranda chimed in.

"I want it to be heard around the world," Alonzo said.

Next stop is the Twin Cities. And if you want more mariachi, there will be a music-filled fiesta in the Ordway's second-floor lobby after each performance.

Minnesota Opera's 'Cruzar la Cara de la Luna'

When: 7:30 p.m. Sat., 7:30 p.m. Nov. 9 and 11, 2 p.m. Nov. 12.

Where: Ordway Music Theater, 345 Washington St., St. Paul.

Tickets: $26-$239, 612-333-6669 or mnopera.org.

Rob Hubbard is a Twin Cities classical music writer. Reach him at wordhub@yahoo.com.