Before Arizona Opera opens its weekend run of "El Milagro del Recuerdo" (The Miracle of Remembering), its star, Octavio Moreno, was spending time on Thursday with about 60 budding Tucson mariachi players.
The Hermosillo native who now calls Tucson home was giving students from Davis Bilingual Elementary School’s performing mariachi group, Las Aguilitas de Davis, a pep talk of sorts and some insight into the music that eventually introduced Moreno to opera.
"When I went into music, and whether or not it was with the intention of being a musician or not, I started taking lessons to sing mariachi the old fashioned way ... where the vocals were imperative," said Moreno, a baritone who sings the lead role of Laurentino in Arizona Opera's performances Saturday, Dec. 11, and Sunday, Dec. 12, at the Temple of Music and Art downtown.
Since he settled into Tucson four years ago, Moreno has gotten involved in the city's mariachi music scene, including subbing for Pueblo High School mariachi leader John Contreras for a month this fall.
"It was amazing," said Moreno, who also has a studio where he teaches voice — one of his Tucson students is competing in a national mariachi competition in Texas this month.
In "El Milagro" this weekend, Moreno will recreate the role that he sang in the first-ever mariachi opera "Cruzar la Cara de la Luna," which Arizona Opera presented in 2014. Moreno sang Laurentino from the opera's premiere with Houston Grand Opera in 2010 through May 2019, including critically acclaimed performances in New York, Chicago, Ecuador and Paris.
"We were always very welcomed with this story," said Moreno, adding that the premise of immigration and home struck a universal chord.
But Moreno, 40, didn't realize how strongly the story resonated beyond the U.S./Mexico border until they took the opera to Paris.
Octavio Moreno plays the guitar at Davis Bilingual Elementary School on Thursday. Moreno plays the lead role of Laurentino in Arizona Opera’s upcoming mariachi opera, "El Milagro del Recuerdo" (The Miracle of Remembering).
"Because the story is directly related to Mexico and the United States immigration, we thought it was really appealing (mostly) in the States, but when we went to Paris it was eye opening," he said, recounting how he and other cast members were approached by audience members at a Paris street-side cafe the day after a performance.
Three black men stopped them and said, "Hey, you were at the opera last night," recalled Moreno, the father of two young daughters.
"And then they were on the verge of crying. ‘You told the story of my family when my parents moved form Africa to Paris,'" they told him. "We already knew it was a national subject, but when these African people came and told us about their story ... being told on stage, it was such a great feeling for us as artists to feel that we were touching people not only in the United States but all over the world.”
Closer to home, Moreno said he finds a lot of similarities between his native Hermosillo and Tucson.
"The essence of the town is like being in Hermosillo, at least that's how it feels to me," he said, ticking off a short list of favorite restaurants including El Cisne Restaurant in the foothills and Opa's Best Greek American Cuisine on East Broadway.
