Arturo Hilario
El Observador
Opera San José’s Zorro is coming to the California Theatre from April 19 – May 4, 2025 with a score influenced by mariachi, flamenco, and corrido music, incredible costumes and sets, and most importantly, a thrilling story that anyone can find compelling.
First premiering in 2010 at the San Francisco Opera, Héctor Armienta’s Zorro explores the world of 1800s California, where social upheaval in Spain and Mexico leads from injustice to revolutions. A young Spanish nobleman named Diego de la Vega returns from Spain to his birthplace in Alta, California, where he sees the oppression of tyrants and becomes the masked hero Zorro in order to defend the poor and free the enslaved.
Latino Opera director David Radamés Toro likes to explain how California’s first superhero was a masked Latino vigilante fighting for people’s rights, our version of Batman. Through his diverse career, the director has worked with prestigious theater companies, trained under students of legendary French mime artist and actor Marcel Marceau, and become an advocate for bringing opera stories that reflect Latino stories and welcoming communities that have historically been excluded from the opera.
Toro is currently also an assistant professor of opera and musical theater direction at Arizona State University’s School of Music, Dance and Theatre.
With Opera San José’ Zorro, Toro gets to bring to life a classic California story that involves romance, suspense and adventure, all within a world that reflects the past and the present realities of society, justice and the Latino diaspora.
Recently I spoke to Toro about his career and how it led him from creating epic operas with action figures as a child to leading the charge in bringing new perspectives to the stage and new audiences to the seats.
To start off, I wanted to know if you could tell me a bit about your background and how it is that your arts career led you to directing operas?
How I got here. Well, from what I always say, I didn’t necessarily come from a musical family. My parents are actually both enlisted Air Force. But my mom raised me listening to classical records and like, Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals and whatnot, and that sparked my interest in singing. And I used to sing, I studied voice. And then during grad school I got very much interested in directing and started directing on the theater side.
And at some point, I wanted to bring my opera side and my theater side together and start directing. I always joked that when I was a little kid, I used to go into the basement and have my X-Men figures, but I would score them with records and soundtracks and whatnot. I was an opera director back before I knew what it was.
I also was reading that you have a background in the miming arts, could you explain that discipline?
So, my theater background is physical theater. I studied Anne Bogart’s Nine Viewpoints, Tadashi Suzuki’s acting method, which I use a lot, and then I mime. My teachers were all students of Marcel Marceau, so I learned classical mime, as well as a form of mime called corporeal mime, which I honestly use every day in my directing.
Stage director David Radamés Toro will direct Opera San José’s production of Héctor Armienta’s Zorro Apr. 19-May 4, 2025 at the California Theatre. Photo Credit: Courtesy of Opera San José
You’ve directed other works before in opera around the country, so what is it like to come to work with Opera San Jose for the first time?
It’s been great. It’s a very good company to work for. The administration has been wonderful. The craftsmen here are just talented individuals. The costume department, they’re building beautiful, beautiful costumes for this show. I’ve gone to see the set a couple of times, and just the attention to detail. It’s been a wonderful experience working here.
What was your goal was with this version of Zorro and what did you want to capture in general with this production?
When I first read this score, Héctor Armienta is the composer and the librettist, so he wrote the story in the music. And what I really liked about it is that it was an adventure story, but it also teaches us something. I’ve been saying a lot just the fact that outside of California, most people don’t really learn about the Spanish presence in North America or the Americas. Especially not Alta California, the Colonial California, and how the Spanish created a caste system. There was the Spanish, the mestizo, and the Indigenous populations. And this story addresses that all.
Our main character, Diego de la Vega, comes back from Spain after studying swordsmanship, and he sees what has happened to Los Angeles and the way in which the Spanish government is subjugating the Indigenous populations, and decides that he needs to do something about it.
On top of learning California history, it always comes back to the fact that reminding people that Latino populations have been here for centuries, that Latino stories are not always immigration stories, that there is a Latino heritage [that] is part of the American culture. And just even a story like this. It takes place in 1811 so even before the US was anywhere near California, we were here.
And so, the way through this adventure story, because don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of fun. There’s sword fighting, there’s a love triangle. It’s an adventure story. But in that, you get to learn a little bit more about the West, about this side of history.
It has been so fulfilling to be able to go into a room and feel like I’m a part of this new era of opera, that I get to be a part of sharing Latino stories, that I get to come in and see other people like me in the room, which I didn’t get to experience for years in this industry.
-David Radamés Toro
What was it like working with the cast that plays Diego de la Vega/ Zorro, and Ana Maria Soza?
Oh, they’re great. Xavier Prado has played this role (Zorro) in the Santa Barbara production last year. So, he came in with knowing his background with it. And then playing Ana Maria Soza, Maria Brea, this is her first time doing it with us, so we’ve been able to collaborate, talk, tell our story, our approach toward the story. They’re so game to playing and trying new things out, as well as telling their point of view and what direction they see this character going, and we collaborate to make a story.
Why do you think that it’s important to reach out, especially here in California, to the Latino community and other communities that have not had the exposure to opera, to see something like this?
I mean, it’s absolutely important for all opera companies to go out there and demonstrate that opera is not for the elite. I’m a wholehearted believer that opera is the work of the people. And especially the culture of opera has changed so much that all truly are welcome to the opera.
Even if it’s in a language that may not be your first language, they broadcast supertitles, so translations. And what Opera San Jose does is great is that they’ll have English and Spanish translation simultaneously. It’s important to let everyone know that they are welcome to be a part of this experience because it’s opera. I mean, we use the term operatic for anything that’s big and over the top, but it is, and it’s exciting that way. It’s a spectacle.
You get music, you get singing. In this case, you get action. All that comes together to entertain you for the length of a movie. There is something, honestly, to be said about being in a room and feeling the vibration of sound that a live orchestra can bring or that live singers can bring or to share an experience with other people around you. If you come to the opera and you can see that there are other people who are like you, you will feel welcome.
That’s, again, why it’s so important for operas to reach out beyond their regular going audience. The seasoned audience is always welcome as well, but we also just want new people to come and experience this.
Even though the story of Zorro takes place in a version of California from long ago, why do you think that this story is still compelling to the present day in its the themes of society and justice?
I mean, like you just said that there are these sadly timeless themes of the struggle of the ruling class versus the working class or the subjugated class. I think Zorro resonates so much because it is the first superhero of the Americas. This is someone who’s fighting for justice for the Indigenous and for the mestizo. Where have you heard that before? Especially when it comes to the Americas, it’s Batman before there was Batman. You have this wealthy landowner who sees injustice and decides to do something about it.
When you’re a little Latino kid like I was, it’s also nice to see someone, again, it’s not always the white savior that comes by, it’s another Hispanic savior that comes by or who comes and reminds us that we have power, and we have what it takes. We don’t have superpowers; Zorro doesn’t have superpowers or anything like that. He just has skill and determination. If we all get together, we can also take care of each other and stop those who would harm us.
Now that you’ve finished the creation part of the show, and are getting close to its opening, what has this experience meant for you overall?
Oh, this is going to be a longish answer. I apologize.
Years ago, I got the opportunity to assist on an opera called El Pasado Nunca se Termina, which is a Mariachi opera about heritage, specifically Mexican-American heritage. From that point on, I made it a part of my mission as a director and as an artist to somehow be a part of this new Latino-American opera canon, to contribute to telling stories that have not been shared or have not been listened to and have been excluded from opera.
I was lucky enough in 23-24, I directed a new production of a Mariachi opera called Cruzar la Cara de la Luna, which is another Mariachi opera, and then being able to be a part of Zorro, written by a Latino-American man from Los Angeles who talks about these themes of justice. My mom is from LA, so I have that little connection, too. It has been so fulfilling to be able to go into a room and feel like I’m a part of this new era of opera that I get to be a part of sharing Latino stories, that I get to come in and see other people like me in the room, which I didn’t get to experience for years in this industry.
To see people who are from Latin America who might be immigrants, who might be first, second, or in my case, third generation, and know that we are all coming together to share an experience where for years, you would never see that. That’s a long way to say that it has been a very fulfilling experience to be part of this story and to be part of this production and bring it to new audiences.
On the eve of its premiere, running April 19 through May 4, why do you recommend that people come and watch Zorro?
So many reasons. For one, the music is fabulous. It’s very fun. The singing is going to be amazing. Also, it’s really cool. Our fight scenes in this are amazing. Dave Maier, our fight choreographer, has created [something] fantastic – there’s some big battles in this. We focused a lot on character directions, so hopefully, audiences will see a little bit themselves in this story, but they should come for the music, the singing and the fighting.
Is there anything else that you’d like to leave us with?
I always want to repeat again, all are welcome at the opera. Come as you are. You don’t have to come fancy. You can come as you’d like. The new purpose of opera is to make sure that everyone feels welcome. So, if you don’t understand, well, the opera is in Spanish and English, it flows seamlessly between both, but we’ll have supertitles in both languages. So come join us. Have fun. Enjoy the adventure.
