Opera "Primero sueño"
Opera "Primero sueño"
Primero sueño opera to be premiered at The MET cloisters on Jan 23, 2025.
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was a mexican poet, dramatist, scholar, and nun, and outstanding writer of the Latin American colonial period. She is considered the first recognized feminist. Her landmark, 975-line poem Primero sueño (alternately translated as First Dream or First I Dream), first published in 1692, is one of the greatest literary works of the Hispanic Baroque. The poem tracks Sor Juana’s mind as it aggregates knowledge, following the soul as it dreams and wakes. She fights for her intellect and curiosity, and shares her insights on mysticism, feminism, and the power of the natural world. Within those moments, she touches on her relationship to nativism of the time, from images of sun to Darwinistic principles to elements of transcendence.
Now, Sor Juana’s tale of the soul’s torturous quest for knowledge appears for the first time in operatic form, using her very own words. Commissioned by MetLiveArts and co-produced by VisionIntoArt, this collaboration between visionary composer Paola Prestini and jazz icon Magos Herrera takes the form of a processional performance through The Met Cloisters. Herrera herself plays Sor Juana, and award-winning German vocal ensemble Sjaella represent both the nuns and and the poem’s vivid images, which range from birds to pyramids to characters of Greek mythology.
ARTISTIC TEAM
Composers: Magos Herrera and Paola Prestini
Director: Louisa Proske
Performers: Magos Herrera, Ensemble Sjaella, Luca Tarantino and Celso Duarte
Choreographer: Jorrell Lawyer-Jefferson
Masks: David Miguel Herrera
Costume Designer: Andrea Lauer
Photo: Shervin Lainez