Chicago Opera Theater presents the Concert Premiere of:
Remedios Varios para las Aflicciones del Cuerpo y el Espíritu
COT’s sixth Vanguard Initiative-produced opera by Composer Carlos R. Carrillo and librettist Stephanie Fleischmann
Saturday, April 5th * 7:30 pm
The Athenaeum Center for Thought and Culture
2936 N Southport Ave., Chicago
Chicago Opera Theater 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.
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.