La Triste Hostaria

This amazing symphonic interpretation of Dia de los Muertos or “Day of the Dead”, is scheduled to premier in Mexico City early next year.

La Triste Historia Site

The visual accompaniment to our story is a vivid melding of film, still photography, art and animation incorporating the vibrant colors and textures of Mexican life, set against the gathering gloom of the Revolution.

Projected onstage like a magic lantern show in a macabre carnavál, the images shadow the lovers’ first meeting in a candlelight procession. Their promenade around the plaza becomes a beguiling reliquary of the rites of courtship. But in the gathering darkness, the dancers are transformed into ghostly apparitions serenaded by a skeletal mariachi band.

Each act is accompanied by a sort of visual libretto. The girl’s death at the hands of Carranza’s troops is transfigured in archival photos of the massacre at Celaya. The Bruja’s (witch’s) cave is the stuff of nightmares. And the couple’s reunion in the moonlit night conjures the ritual celebrated in graveyards throughout the country. This, after all, is a night of phantasmic visitation – the border between seen and unseen worlds … and our audience must experience the presence of the other side of the veil.