Mexican artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera are icons not just in Latin America, but the world over. Their lives and tumultuous relationship have been subjects of intense scholarship, finding their way into books, films and galleries.

Now an opera can be added to the list.

Crafted by Bay Area composerGabriela Lena Frankand Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz, “El último sueño de Frida y Diego” is making its San Francisco Opera debut Tuesday, June 13, following its world premiere in San Diego in October. The fictional story follows the desires of Rivera, who wishes to see his deceased wife Kahlo once more on Nov. 1, Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead), when souls may travel back to Earth for 24 hours.

The pair’s complicated union on earth leads to an initial rejection from Kahlo, a refusal also informed by a debilitating spine injury. Ultimately, she relents — not for Diego, but to witness her majestic and luminous artwork once more.

While the words “Frida and Diego” hold many connotations, Cruz, the production’s librettist whose play “Anna in the Tropics” won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2003, scaled down on the iconic status of the subjects and allowed the colorful paintings and murals of both artists to fulfill his concept.

“My vision has always been through art, not through biography,” Cruz said. “Of course I have to know about them, but the work of art” is certainly the most informative.

Melding the brilliant decadence of Kahlo’s and Rivera’s world of color onto the War Memorial Opera House stage falls on the star of the opera, the music itself. Frank’s compositions have historical significance for the company, which is celebrating itscentennial this year. The Berkeley native is the first female composer of color to be produced at the San Francisco Opera, and her composition is the first in the company’s history to be sung in Spanish.

The opera’s production in San Francisco is fitting and appropriate, considering Kahlo’s and Rivera’s art career had a significant stop in the city. In 1930-31, the well-established Rivera was commissioned as amuralist at the San Francisco Art Instituteand the Pacific Stock Exchange building. The couple returned to San Francisco in 1940, where Rivera took ona huge fresco commissionat the Golden Gate International Exposition (now on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art). The pair even remarried at City Hall after their divorce in 1939.

A trained Rivera muralist, Victor Arnautoff, supervised 25 other muralists who painted fresco murals on the interior of Coit Tower, completed in 1933.

While Kahlo was 23 and only five years into her career during that first Bay Area stretch, one of her works, “Frida and Diego Rivera,” was painted “in the delightful city of San Francisco,” Kahlo was quoted as saying. That painting also is presently displayed at SFMOMA.

Cruz’s poetic instincts and Frank’s gift for structural framework have made them a dynamic duo of intersectional storytelling. Imbuing her specific sound to support the distinct existences that Cruz built into his libretto was of the utmost importance.

“One thing I wanted to do was honor the three worlds that Nilo sets up: the world of the dead, the living, and then briefly, the world of art,” said Frank. “I needed to come up with sounds that befitted all three worlds, as if you were stepping into distinct universes.”

Mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack is no stranger to lending her register to historic, transcendent icons. In her career, she has sung figures such as Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Federico Garcia Lorca, and performed all over the world.

Still, despite her vast experience and even as a Latina herself, portraying someone like Frida Kahlo comes with its own set of terror.

“My goal as an artist is certainly to always give a truthful and authentic portrayal of anybody I do. But it’s sort of more delicate when you’re dealing with a real human being who means so much to so many people,” said Mack, an alumnus of San Francisco Opera’s prestigious Adler Fellowship Program. “She is such a mountain of a person adopted by so many groups in society, and not just Latinos. All of us can claim a little bit of her enough to hopefully be inspired, and that’s my goal.”

导演曾胎盘是公司对cr的处理方法afting the opera, choosing not to elevate Kahlo and Rivera to mythical status. She had some intimate knowledge of the couple, as she grew up with Rivera’s grandson, Juan Coronel Rivera. But, more importantly, it is the humanity of the artists that help the opera tell a more intricate story.

“They are the most worldwide-known Latin American cultural icons, but they were also human beings,” Maza said. “They were artists that struggled with their humanity, and we can relate to them in many ways. This is not a biopic or exact truth, but a unique story. Our job as artists is to tell the specific story that Nilo and Gabriela created.”

And telling that story includes the rare luxury for Mack to sing opera in Spanish.

“I’m able to connect to the music in a different way, and maybe more readily when it is in my native tongue,” said Mack, who was born in Buenos Aires. “The hope is that when we do connect so deeply, we’re then able to connect with an audience member more meaningfully. That’s the hope with any new piece, of course, but specifically with this piece, we would really love to connect with the community in that way.”

David John Chávez is a freelance writer.