Frida Kahlo is a female Mexican artist who is famous for her surrealist artworks and self-portraits. She has been so influential that there are movies about her, immersive experiences, and even T-shirts and tote bags! Yet the “Fridamania” knows no end. On Thursday, it was reported that Kahlo’s life experience will be created into a Broadway musical.
Expected to open on Broadway in 2024, the production will follow Kahlo’s life route, from Mexico City to Paris to New York, and back to the “Blue House” where she was both born and died.. The musical will have music by Jaime Lozano and lyrics by Neena Beber and will be produced by Valentina Berger. The title of the musical is named “Frida,” after Kahlo’s first name.
Even though people already know a lot about her life, the musical’s creators hope the show will present the audiences with a new perspective of Frida Kahlo’s life by revealing previously hidden details and the “actual” Frida.
This musical is partially based on the book that Frida’s niece Isolda P. Kahlo wrote about her in a book called “Intimate Frida,” and a conversation with her family. This wasn’t the first attempt to make her life story a musical, but this one was the only one her family had officially approved.
“In all the stories I heard when I was a little child, our family remembered Aunt Frida as a very joyful woman,” said Mara Romeo Kahlo, versatile successor to the Frida Kahlo legacy, to The Washington Post. “She was passionate about music, arts, and Mexican culture. ‘Frida, The Musical’ honors everything she was: a real woman who fought for her dreams, loved like anybody else, and always lived ahead of her time.”
Although Kahlo products sometimes package her as a sparkling feminist icon, and because art historians tend to focus on her physical and emotional suffering, the creators of the musical say they want to capture something more three-dimensional. “We want to see Frida through a wider perspective,” said Lozano in a phone interview.
“Everyone knows a colder Frida, a suffering Frida, but she loved life,” Berger said. “She was really, really fun to be with. That’s what we want to portray. I used to have a sad impression of Frida, like, ‘Oh, the poor woman.’ Now, knowing how she was so smart and so clever, I look up to her.” Beber, the playwright, is excited roughly capturing Kahlo’s funny side, which she believes is often overlooked. “I really connected to her humor,” she said. “I don’t think I knew how funny she was — that she had this wry, dry sense of humor. She really was of the people.”
Her estate also recently announced that there will be a TV series coming out based on her life and her artwork.
To Beber, the apparently endless content of Kahlo means her life never really “ended.” “Why are people still doing Shakespeare?” she asked. “Why are people still finding ways to make ‘Hamlet’ exciting? How many self-portraits did Frida do? A lot. I think there’s room for multiple Fridas. We want to bring our passions, love, interests, and pain to her story. Let there be many Fridas.”
She had a very dramatic personal experience. She had an affair with Russsian-Ukrainian revolutionary Leon Trotsky while she was married to Diego Rivera. When she was 18, she damaged her spine and pelvis during a car accident. That is also why she often painted from her bed and described her body as shattered, bleeding – to define the breakdown of her body. Unfortunately, she passed away at the age of 47.
Despite the misfortunes and obstacles in her life, there’s also a lighter side to Kahlo, according to Berger, who visited the Kahlo family in Mexico.
Berger says she learned that, before Kahlo would leave on trips, she would tell her sisters to bath her husband. “I mean, how close do you have to be to your sisters to suggest something like that?” Berger asked.
Throughout Berger’s trip, she had further understandings of Kahlo’s life, too, which she wishes will inform the musical. She visited Kahlo’s mother’s house where Kahlo hid when Rivera grew violent, she heard Kahlo’s family play the songs Frida loved and used to sing. She also listened to firsthand recordings of Frida: how she was always laughing and telling wild stories.
Lozano, the composer of the music, also went to visit Kahlo’s family. The composer immigrated to the United States from Mexico in 2007, has spent much of his career telling Latinx stories like this one, and says he could relate to Kahlo, who was also a Mexican immigrant in New York at one point in life, just like him.
Ten songs have been composed for the production so far. One song, “Wings,” captures Kahlo’s endurance, amid suffering, and eventually joy. It’s based on a famous quote from Kahlo, related to her chronic pain that often kept her bedridden: “Feet,” she said, “what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?”
Expected to open on Broadway in 2024, the production will follow Kahlo’s life route, from Mexico City to Paris to New York, and back to the “Blue House” where she was both born and died.. The musical will have music by Jaime Lozano and lyrics by Neena Beber and will be produced by Valentina Berger. The title of the musical is named “Frida,” after Kahlo’s first name.
Even though people already know a lot about her life, the musical’s creators hope the show will present the audiences with a new perspective of Frida Kahlo’s life by revealing previously hidden details and the “actual” Frida.
This musical is partially based on the book that Frida’s niece Isolda P. Kahlo wrote about her in a book called “Intimate Frida,” and a conversation with her family. This wasn’t the first attempt to make her life story a musical, but this one was the only one her family had officially approved.
“In all the stories I heard when I was a little child, our family remembered Aunt Frida as a very joyful woman,” said Mara Romeo Kahlo, versatile successor to the Frida Kahlo legacy, to The Washington Post. “She was passionate about music, arts, and Mexican culture. ‘Frida, The Musical’ honors everything she was: a real woman who fought for her dreams, loved like anybody else, and always lived ahead of her time.”
Although Kahlo products sometimes package her as a sparkling feminist icon, and because art historians tend to focus on her physical and emotional suffering, the creators of the musical say they want to capture something more three-dimensional. “We want to see Frida through a wider perspective,” said Lozano in a phone interview.
“Everyone knows a colder Frida, a suffering Frida, but she loved life,” Berger said. “She was really, really fun to be with. That’s what we want to portray. I used to have a sad impression of Frida, like, ‘Oh, the poor woman.’ Now, knowing how she was so smart and so clever, I look up to her.” Beber, the playwright, is excited roughly capturing Kahlo’s funny side, which she believes is often overlooked. “I really connected to her humor,” she said. “I don’t think I knew how funny she was — that she had this wry, dry sense of humor. She really was of the people.”
Her estate also recently announced that there will be a TV series coming out based on her life and her artwork.
To Beber, the apparently endless content of Kahlo means her life never really “ended.” “Why are people still doing Shakespeare?” she asked. “Why are people still finding ways to make ‘Hamlet’ exciting? How many self-portraits did Frida do? A lot. I think there’s room for multiple Fridas. We want to bring our passions, love, interests, and pain to her story. Let there be many Fridas.”
She had a very dramatic personal experience. She had an affair with Russsian-Ukrainian revolutionary Leon Trotsky while she was married to Diego Rivera. When she was 18, she damaged her spine and pelvis during a car accident. That is also why she often painted from her bed and described her body as shattered, bleeding – to define the breakdown of her body. Unfortunately, she passed away at the age of 47.
Despite the misfortunes and obstacles in her life, there’s also a lighter side to Kahlo, according to Berger, who visited the Kahlo family in Mexico.
Berger says she learned that, before Kahlo would leave on trips, she would tell her sisters to bath her husband. “I mean, how close do you have to be to your sisters to suggest something like that?” Berger asked.
Throughout Berger’s trip, she had further understandings of Kahlo’s life, too, which she wishes will inform the musical. She visited Kahlo’s mother’s house where Kahlo hid when Rivera grew violent, she heard Kahlo’s family play the songs Frida loved and used to sing. She also listened to firsthand recordings of Frida: how she was always laughing and telling wild stories.
Lozano, the composer of the music, also went to visit Kahlo’s family. The composer immigrated to the United States from Mexico in 2007, has spent much of his career telling Latinx stories like this one, and says he could relate to Kahlo, who was also a Mexican immigrant in New York at one point in life, just like him.
Ten songs have been composed for the production so far. One song, “Wings,” captures Kahlo’s endurance, amid suffering, and eventually joy. It’s based on a famous quote from Kahlo, related to her chronic pain that often kept her bedridden: “Feet,” she said, “what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?”