Remedios Varios para las Aflicciones del Cuerpo y el Espíritu

Chicago Opera Theater (COT), Chicago’s foremost producer of new and reimagined opera, continues its 2024-25 season with the concert premiere of the sixth full-length opera produced through COT’s industry leading Vanguard Initiative. Composed by Vanguard Composer Carlos R. Carrillo to a libretto by renowned opera librettist Stephanie Fleischmann, Remedios Varios para las Aflicciones del Cuerpo y el Espíritu (Remedios Varios), Carillo’s first opera, was developed over the course of his two years as a COT Vanguard composer. Audiences will have the opportunity to see the culmination of this process at the concert premiere of Remedios Varios at The Athenaeum Center for Thought and Culture, 2936 N Southport Ave. on  Saturday, April 5 at 7:30PM. Tickets for Remedios Varios are $50.00 and are available at chicagooperatheater.org.

Remedios Varios para las Aflicciones del Cuerpo y el Espíritu translates to Various Remedies for the Afflictions of the Body and Spirit in English. Set in a world devoid of color and inspired by the imagery of Spanish-Mexican surrealist painter Remedios Varo, a lone tree holds within its rings the memory and possibility of music, poetry, and art. An herbalist struggles to heal a community afflicted by a siege of maladies, and a homesick boarding-school student dreams of escape. An ancient medicinal, written in Spanish (one of countless forbidden languages), just may hold the key — to transcendence, or complete obliteration. This operatic fable journeys into the realm of imagination, where renewal and possibility take root and blossom.

Conducted by Eli Chen with dramaturgy by Kelley Rourke, the cast includes soprano Hayley Fox as The Girl, mezzo-soprano Leah Dexter as The Herbalist, tenor Alejandro Luévanos as The Teacher, bass Stephen Clark as The Tree/Father, and countertenor Ryan Belongie as The Student. Remedios Varios is sung in English with portions in Spanish. English Supertitles will be projected.