KQED writes about Dolores
A landmark labor struggle might seem like difficult terrain to explore in an opera, but Long Beach-based composer Nicolás Lell Benavides knew that he had a riveting tale to tell in Dolores.
Working with librettist Marella Martin Koch, he decided to focus on the roiling events of 1968, a year of dread and calamity from Prague and Paris to Mexico City and Memphis. It was also the third year of the grinding United Farm Workers strike led by Dolores Huerta, César Chavez and Larry Itliong, which gave birth to an international boycott of California-grown grapes.
Dolores covers the months between Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s embrace of the farmworker cause in his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination and the devastating aftermath of his assassination at the Ambassador Hotel. Huerta, who had helped turned out Latino and Asian American voters for him, stood by Kennedy’s side during his victory speech.