October 26, 31 & November 2, 2025
2:00 pm Sundays, 7:30 pm Friday
NHCC | Albuquerque Journal Theatre
Music / Nicolás Lell Benavides
Libretto / Marella Martin Koch
1968. The Delano grape strike is dragging into its third year. Farmworkers in California are building solidarity that transcends race and
language. Bobby Kennedy is running for president. Tricky Dick is on the radio promising discipline. Dolores Huerta is holding the movement together with one hand. With the other, she dials home, again, to say goodnight to children she hasn’t seen in weeks.
She’s not a symbol. Not yet.
She’s just doing the work.
Dolores is an opera that floats between the real and the imagined, memory and nightmare. Composer Nicolás Lell Benavides and librettist Marella Martin Koch stitch history into something fragile and feverish. There are sacred chants, electric guitar pulsations, bossa nova hallucinations.
Labor icon Dolores Huerta helped build a union out of dust and righteous anger. She walked the fields, held the line, made the calls. With César Chávez and Larry Itliong, she shaped a movement that reached the ears of presidents but never lost sight of the people bent over the vines. The work didn’t stop. It never does. That’s the cost of believing another world is possible.
¡SÍ SE PUEDE!
Commissioned and Co-produced by Opera Southwest, West Edge Opera and San Diego Opera, presented in partnership with the National Hispanic Cultural Center.
Piano tuning and preparation are provided by Albuquerque Piano Services: albuquerque-piano-tuning.com
Running Time: 2 hours and 30 minutes including one intermission
SUNG IN ENGLISH
-English translations are projected above the stage for all operas-
45 Minutes before curtain, Opera Southwest offers our “Opera Insights” pre-opera talks. These take place in either Bank of America
Theatre or Wells Fargo Auditorium, accessible from the shared lobby with the Albuquerque Journal Theatre.
For more information on Opera Southwest please click HERE.
$29, $49, $69, $89 & $109 with discounts for groups of 8 or more, anyone 30 years old and younger and Opera for All with a WIC or EBT card. Opera for All tickets are limited to 2 per ID and must be purchased at the NHCC box office by calling 505-724-4771 or in person.
*In accordance with the ticketing policies of the event promoter, tickets for this event are not permitted to be advertised or re-sold for more than face value. All ticket sales must be purchased through National Hispanic Cultural Center or accompanying host partner.
*All NHCC performance/event ticket sales go through the National Hispanic Cultural Center Website. NHCC is a division of New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. You will be redirected to our central ticketing system. DO NOT BUY FROM THIRD PARTIES. If you see a third party app or website, please report it to the Center at (505) 246-2261.