‘Ofrenda’ Review: A Musical Meeting With Death at Austin Opera

The Texas company’s first commissioned opera, with a score by Jorge Sosa and a libretto by John de los Santos, is a Mexican-infused take on a fairy tale.

By 

Heidi Waleson

Oct. 5, 2026 at 5:07 pm ET

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Victoria Vargas ERICH SCHLEGEL

Austin, Texas

Austin Opera, the $5 million company in the Texas state capital—much smaller than the better-known outfits of Dallas and Houston—is having some firsts this season. Its brand-new headquarters, a converted warehouse in an industrial park south of downtown, includes a 200-seat black box theater, where last week the company offered the premiere of its first-ever commissioned opera, Jorge Sosa’s “Ofrenda.” The 80-minute chamber piece, running through Oct. 11, is part of a new endowed initiative that supports Spanish-language programming. 

“Ofrenda” (the title refers to the altar constructed for the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead), set in Southern California in 1988, is an updated Mexican-infused take on a Brothers Grimm fairy tale, “Godfather Death,” by way of “Macario,” a 1950 adaptation by B. Traven and a 1960 film of the same name by Roberto Gavaldón. In John de los Santos’s jam-packed libretto, Macaria, who works as a hospital custodian, meets the mysterious Señora, who is actually Death, on a bus. The Señora offers Macaria a gift—a bottle containing her tears, which can revive the dying. Macaria uses the tears on her beloved daughter Pina (who has undiagnosed stomach cancer) and then surreptitiously saves the hospital’s dying patients. A second plot involves the clandestine relationship of Carla, the hospital administrator, with Gary, a hot young male nurse, and their unplanned, very sick, premature baby. The two threads come together as Macaria, who has run out of magic tears, makes a final, fatal bargain with the Señora in order to save the baby and secure Pina’s future.

Mr. De los Santos’s dense text, which alternates between Spanish and English, is constructed to convey a lot of information, which often leaves Mr. Sosa’s pleasantly tonal score in a subordinate position. The Macaria-Pina relationship is musically persuasive—their mutual love, accompanied by some uptempo Latin rhythms, survives the inevitable clashes of worried mother and adolescent daughter (who dates a useless guy and delays applying for a scholarship). The Carla-Gary plot feels more forced, with Carla’s cougar energy, Gary’s resentment and their noisy, overlapping arguments. A few arias punctuate the narrative, most notably the Señora offering her gift of tears and, later, Macaria’s troubled musing about how it has burdened her; they are structured with Puccini-esque swoops and climaxes.

Mr. Sosa made able use of his small instrumental ensemble of string quartet, bass, percussion and keyboard to create mood, texture and propulsion. A hospital monitor’s flat-line drone dissolved into an orchestral beginning, suggesting a return to life; hand-drum rhythms injected Mexican flavor, while bells and mallet instruments supplied some otherworldly touches. Timothy Myers was the skillful conductor.

Maia Aramburú and Kelly Guerra. ERICH SCHLEGEL

Kelly Guerra was an affecting, complex Macaria, her luminous mezzo making an eloquent contrast with the high, bright soprano of Maia Aramburú as Pina; their duets were among the score’s best moments. Soprano Kristin Bilodeau (Carla) and baritone Kyle White (Gary) sounded loudly histrionic in the small theater. Mezzo Victoria Vargas conveyed the Señora’s off-putting mystery. Susan Branch Towne cleverly costumed her as a grubby bag lady, giving an extra charge to her surprise when Macaria sits next to her on the bus, offers her half a turkey sandwich and tells her a joke.

In the simple but effective production, designed by Daniel Chapman, three rear panels served as screens for Anthony Robles’s mostly black-and-white projections that situated us in Carla’s office, a hospital corridor, a bus, or Macaria’s living room. Other images were less place-centric—an MRI, a candle, a horde of monarch butterflies, the storm of the Señora’s tears. Basic black boxes became a desk, a sofa, or a hospital bed, with additional touches like Macaria’s ofrenda for her dead husband. The orchestra was behind the panels.

Mr. De los Santos directed with economy and precision, capturing the physical essence of these relationships—as when Macaria and Pina playfully acted out the extremes of telenovela emoting. The supertitles were awkwardly placed on screens at either side of the stage, making the sightlines difficult. For the opera’s bittersweet, 12-years-later ending, the projection backdrop of a cemetery was in full color, but it was Pina’s makeshift ofrenda at Macaria’s grave—and Mr. Sosa’s poignant conclusion—that conveyed the ongoing connection of the living and the dead.