The tenor breaks into song next to bunches of bananas strung high above ripe papayas.
Wearing a red market apron, he approaches a woman wrapped in a purple shawl and serenades her for 90 seconds, while clutching her hand and looking her in the eyes. Tears stream down the woman’s face.
The Saturday opera performance is part of an effort to bring the arts to everyday life in Mexico City.
Photo: AP
A troupe of four singers surprise shoppers at one of the city’s 300 public markets, chopping beef while they belt out romanzas, courting fruit vendors with arias or, in the case of the tenor, moving a woman to tears with lines such as “eyes that cry don’t know how to lie” from the opera La Tabernera del Pueblo.
After the song, the tenor hugs the woman — a total stranger before the serenade — and kisses her on the cheek.
Shopper Ana Garcia, 65, said she never expected to hear “such beautiful voices” while browsing the fruit aisle.
The tenor is a market vendor himself: Francisco Pedraza sells shoes seven days a week near the Basilica of Guadalupe. He trained to sing opera via private lessons from the age of 16 until 30, but he said he felt excluded from the tight-knit opera circle in Mexico.
He performed when and where he could, often as a backup singer for bands that play regional Mexican music.
“The voice is an instrument that you have to exercise continuously to always maintain the same range,” he said.
One day in June, the opera crew appeared for a sound check at the market where Pedraza sells shoes.
Pedraza, who is 50, approached the group’s artistic director. He auditioned on the spot and was invited to join the troupe.
The singers are on tour as part of a pilot program that began in June and concludes in November.
Juan Carlos Diaz, coordinator of the community cultural action program for Mexico’s national fine arts institute, said he is planning more impromptu operas next year.
The idea is to awaken interest in the arts by bringing opera and dance performances to places where people gather, such as public markets and metro stations. Diaz calls them “spontaneous interruptions in social life.”
The institute is also coaching children to make puppets and other crafts at city museums.
Lydia Rendon, a mezzo-soprano in the troupe who is also a music therapist, describes opera as music that makes people vibrate both emotionally and physiologically “like a magical acoustic massage.”
Bringing song to the marketplaces, between tomatoes and avocados, injects a primal element to the performance, Rendon said, since everybody eats.
“This is where our humanity connects — the food, the smells, the flavors — and it’s even better with music,” Rendon said shortly before launching into a sultry rendition of Habanera from the opera Carmen, green apple in one hand, plastic shopping bag in the other, capped with a giant kiss on the cheek of a woman who hawks chicken feet from a cart.
Interaction with the crowd is key to the performances. It is a way for onlookers to feel like they are part of the spectacle and show that fine art is within their reach — to dispel notions that opera is only for elites.
The show wraps up with the cheerful so-called drinking song from La Traviata.
A vendor thanks the singers with free cups of papaya juice, while another who said he got goose bumps from the performance invites them to a round of carnitas tacos.
Jesus Montes, a fourth-generation fishmonger, lingered afterward with a spellbound expression on his face.
The 18-year-old said he relished the break in routine and the introduction to another form of music, adding that he listens to “classic” Latin genres such as reggaeton, a cousin of rap, and banda, which is heavy on brass instruments for a polka-like sound, but he found the opera performance relaxing.
“Trying new things can be really beautiful, and sometimes it changes the way you think, which is what happened today,” he said.
Upon hearing that tenor Pedraza is a real-life market vendor, Montes lit up, and said that gives him hope that he can achieve more personal development himself.
“Not just anybody has a voice that powerful,” he said.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday vowed that those behind bogus flood control projects would be arrested before Christmas, days after deadly back-to-back typhoons left swathes of the country underwater. Scores of construction firm owners, government officials and lawmakers — including Marcos’ cousin congressman — have been accused of pocketing funds for substandard or so-called “ghost” infrastructure projects. The Philippine Department of Finance has estimated the nation’s economy lost up to 118.5 billion pesos (US$2 billion) since 2023 due to corruption in flood control projects. Criminal cases against most of the people implicated are nearly complete, Marcos told reporters. “We don’t file cases for
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
Ecuadorans are today to vote on whether to allow the return of foreign military bases and the drafting of a new constitution that could give the country’s president more power. Voters are to decide on the presence of foreign military bases, which have been banned on Ecuadoran soil since 2008. A “yes” vote would likely bring the return of the US military to the Manta air base on the Pacific coast — once a hub for US anti-drug operations. Other questions concern ending public funding for political parties, reducing the number of lawmakers and creating an elected body that would
‘ATTACK ON CIVILIZATION’: The culture ministry released drawings of six missing statues representing the Roman goddess of Venus, the tallest of which was 40cm Investigators believe that the theft of several ancient statues dating back to the Roman era from Syria’s national museum was likely the work of an individual, not an organized gang, officials said on Wednesday. The National Museum of Damascus was closed after the heist was discovered early on Monday. The museum had reopened in January as the country recovers from a 14-year civil war and the fall of the 54-year al-Assad dynasty last year. On Wednesday, a security vehicle was parked outside the main gate of the museum in central Damascus while security guards stood nearby. People were not allowed in because
RSS