Music by Pedro Osuna
Libretto by Amanda Hollander
Directed by Peter Kazaras
Original Play by Ana Caro
VALOR, excerpts from an opera
The Courage to Right a Woman’s Wrongs (Valor, agravio y mujer) is a comedy of wild intrigue and lively ingenuity in which Leonor crosses geographical boundaries and defies social expectations of gender in order to bring her fickle lover, Don Juan, to justice and restore her lost honor.
VALOR will be in English.
Cross-dressing, betrayal, affairs, revenge—before there was Bridgerton, there was Valor, a play by 17th-century Spanish playwright Ana Caro. Little is known about Caro. Born enslaved in Granada and later adopted by a judicial official, Caro pursued her career as a playwright with great contemporary success, as recorded by her friend and novelist, Maria de Zayas. Though little of Ana Caro’s work survives in the present day, notable among them is her play Valor, which follows Leonor, a young woman seduced and abandoned by libertine Don Juan, who has followed him while cross-dressed as a man using the name Leonardo. Meanwhile, the latest target of Don Juan’s seduction, Estela, falls in love not with Don Juan, but the disguised Leonor. Translated into English by Diversifying the Classics and adapted for opera by composer Pedro Osuna and librettist Amanda Hollander, Caro’s play continues to move through centuries and across continents, for the story of women’s courage and ingenuity is one that remains timeless.
Born in Granada (Spain), Pedro Osuna studied piano and composition at the local conservatory before moving to the United States in 2015 to attend Berklee College of Music on a scholarship. In 2021, he became the youngest orchestrator for a 007 film with No Time To Die. Osuna worked with Oscar-winning composer Michael Giacchino on Lightyear and Thor: Love and Thunder in 2022, and scored Santiago Mitre’s Argentina, 1985, which won a Golden Globe and earned an Academy Award nomination, with Giacchino as his mentor. As a concert composer, he has collaborated with prestigious ensembles and soloists, with his music performed in renowned venues like the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Dubai Expo. Osuna also collaborates in dance projects, and has recently toured with Cuban choreographer Joan Rodriguez’s Bloquea’o.
CAST
Leela Subramaniam, Countess Estela
Carmen Edano, Leonor
Romeo Lopez, Prince Ludovico
Leland Smith, Don Juan
Leland Smith, Don Juan
Piano by Brandon Zhou
Translation into English by Diversifying the Classics