The Messenger--Coming 2005

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A workshop presentation by Teatro Vista on

THE MESSENGER

Adapted from the novel by Mayra Montero, The Messenger: Caruso en Cuba, tells the story of a pair of doomed lovers-world-famous tenor Enrico Caruso and his Chinese-Cuban mulatta mistress. In June 1920 a bomb exploded at the Teatro National in Havana at the very moment that Enrico Caruso was singing Radames in the opera Aida. Caruso's excesses had angered the agents of the Sicilian Black Hand. In a panic, he fled the theatre and disappeared into the back streets. As Caruso tries to escape, he is drawn into a passionate love affair with a woman whose godfather is the powerful Afro-Cuban santero Jose de Calazan and her father is the leader of the equally powerful Chinese Sanfancon. The Messenger unfolds its mysteries against the rhythms and rituals of African santeria and Chinese folk magic and weaves a brooding, compelling tale of love and death.