The 95-year-old labor organizer and feminist legend Dolores Huerta was in attendance last week at
Dolores, an opera depicting her life in 1968 during the Delano Grape Strike and Boycott. The two-act work by composer
Nicolás Lell Benavides was the opening production of West Edge Opera's 2025 summer season at the Oakland Scottish Rite Center, and the occasion was a huge, emotional success.
Soprano Kelly Guerra sang the title role with unflagging energy, acting as the ballast for a wide range of historical characters and incidents in Marella Martin Koch's libretto.
(All production photos are by Cory Weaver.)
The Delano Grape Strike began in 1965 after Larry Itliong and his predominantly Filipino-American farmworkers' AWOC (Agricultural Workers' Organizing Committee) staged a 10-day walkout over differing wages between Mexican
braceros and domestic grape pickers in the Coachella Valley. When the same workers migrated north to the San Joaquin Valley for its grape picking season, they struck over the same issue. The Mexican-American NFWA (National Farm Workers Association), which had been formed in 1962 by Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, was faced with the decision on whether to join them and after a unanimous vote, they did so, eventally combining the two groups into the UFW (United Farm Workers).
An interesting account of this history was written in 1967 by John Gregory Dunne for the
Saturday Evening Post magazine, with evocative black-and-white photography by Ted Streshinsky that was occasionally used as background imagery throughout the opera production. (Dunne is probably best known these days as the late husband of Joan Didion, and Streshinsky was also the father of West Edge Opera General Director Mark Streshinsky. Incidentally, to round out family connections, the composer Benavides is a third cousin to Dolores Huerta.)
In 1968, the strike was in its third year and according to Dunne, was "mired in quicksand," with violence breaking out on both sides of Highway 99 (east for the growers, west for the workers). Chavez, performed with grace and beauty by baritone Phillip Lopez, then initiated a personal hunger strike to reconfirm his commitment to non-violence, which turned into a huge media event. Dolores contacted Senator Robert F. Kennedy and pleaded with him to visit Chavez or the labor leader was going to die after subsisting on water for 20 days. Kennedy did so, breaking bread with Chavez on day 23 of the fast, and then announcing his candidacy for President of the U.S.
At this point, the narrative about Dolores veers into a story of gringo politicians, including tenor Sam Faustine as "Tricky Dick" Nixon, who sings a couple of insinuatingly comic arias about the deliciousness of grapes and the importance of law and order. His vaudeville style turns threaten to hijack the opera into a Brecht meets
Nixon in China affair, and makes the ensuing, earnest scenes of Kennedy and Huerta look comparatively square. Although the material would seem ripe for simple agit-prop tunes, Benavides is an extraordinarily sophisticated composer and he offered up complex, varied music that was performed brilliantly by a 16-person chamber orchestra led by conductor Mary Chun.
The second act opens at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on the night that RFK wins the California presidential primary, with Dolores Huerta at his side after her tireless election organizing of Mexican-Americans. Tenor Alex Boyer was charming and convincing as Kennedy and soprano Chelsea Hollow was delightful in dual roles as The Wife of both Chavez and RFK.
1968 was a viciously ugly year in U.S. history, with the assassinations of both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy, and the opera brought it all back.
Much of the second act is an extended elegy for RFK, highlighted by a touching aria from baritone Sergio González as the Mexican immigrant busboy who cradled the dying Kennedy after he had been shot.
This was followed by a confusing scene between Chavez, Huerta, and the wonderfully intense baritone Rolfe Dauz as Larry Itlion that involved an argument about future tactics without really explaining the issues.
The effective finale featured the chorus led by Dolores continuing on with the strike, which lasted another two years, while singing "Si, se puede." The stage was framed by video imagery from the recent "No Kings" protests over Trump's horrific, racist policies towards immigrants, bringing history full circle. Dolores Huerta came onstage with composer Benavides at the curtain call for a short speech, reiterating "Yes, you can" in the fight against injustice. It was an amazing moment, and you can catch the
final performance next Saturday, August 16 at 8PM.
