The story of Reinaldo Arenas, the brilliant and irrepressible dissident Cuban that was captured in his own memoir ‘Before Night Falls‘ is now retold in a  opera about to be produced by the Florida Grand Opera. Arenas was an outcast who was jailed for his outspoken writing and flamboyant sexuality, and then escaped on the Mariel boatlift in 1980. Only a decade later, deathly sick with AIDS, he committed suicide. His story was then immortalized for the world in a well-received 2000 film directed by Julian Schnabel which earned Javier Bardem a Best Actor Oscar Nomination.

Composer Jorge Martin told The Miami Herald that he thought it was very that fitting  that the Opera is now performed  here in Miami .  He added “The central struggle of Reinaldo’s life was the struggle for freedom, as a writer, as a sexual being, as someone who wanted to see the world, so many freedoms that were not permitted him in Cuba. When he left Cuba, he had all those freedoms. … But he cannot escape AIDS. His life was a series of prisons and escapes from prisons. That, to me, is a universal condition.”

 

 

Before Night Falls : March 18th thru March 25th 2017

For tickets and information click here.

 

P.S. Here is the movie trailer:-