Dolores Huerta as Operatic Heroine

On August 12th in San Francisco's Veterans Building, a "workshp" performance was given of Dolores, an unfinished opera about the legendary California labor, civil rights, and feminist activist Dolores Huerta. And who should show up but the 93-year-old icon herself.

The opera by Nicolás Lell Benavides with a libretto by Marella Martin Koch was incubated by the West Edge Opera troupe during the pandemic, which held a composing contest for new works. Sunday was the first live run-through of about an hours' worth of the opera, which already has multiple regional companies co-producing the work that is slated to premiere in 2025.

Composer Benavides, in his introductory thank you remarks, singled out brilliant Bay Area conductor Mary Chun (above left) who was raised in the San Joaquin Valley, the resonant geography of the opera. He also gushed about Southern California native mezzo-soprano Kelly Guerra (above right), who performed the title role.

The libretto focuses on the year 1968, three years into the United Farm Workers union table grape boycott, when Cesar Chavez began a very public hunger strike before ending it after a visit from presidential candidate Robert Kennedy. Dolores's organizing skills were a huge boost for Kennedy's eventual California primary win, and he thanked her publicly during his victory speech at the Ambassador Hotel right before he was assassinated. Other historical characters appear, like Samuel Faustine as Tricky Dick, above left, in two scenes that play as Nixonian satirical cabaret. Another character is Larry Itliong, an important Filipino labor organizer ally, given an intense, well-sung performance by David Castillo, above right. (Not pictured is Alex Boyer as Robert Kennedy who delivered a splendid aria that sounded like the verbatim victory speech.)

Benavides also thanked West Edge Opera General Director Mark Streshinsky for coming up with the money to add a chorus to the opera's forces. Their repeated interjections of "Uvas no (No grapes!)" was one of the highlights of the afternoon. (Pictured are Andrew Green, Julia Hathaway, Alexis Jensen, Michael Kuo, Richard Mix, and Leandra Ramm.)

In one affecting aria, Sergio González played Juan Romero, a busboy who met Kennedy on that ill-fated evening.

Dolores had nine children over the decades so there were a lot of cousins present at this preview performance, including composer Nicolás Lell Benavides himself.

My late, leftist mother adored Mexican culture and helped poor farmworker families jump through bureaucratic hurdles. For years, her favorite snack on the Southern California beaches where we swam every day had always been green grapes, but for five years she was adamant in boycotting them in support of the long, grueling strike. To see Dolores Huerta in person decades later felt like a circle being closed. May the operatic tribute prosper.