A Berwyn kid makes good at the opera

Posted on Thursday, November 11

Image: Esteban Andres Cruz + David Daniels  ©Dan-Rest

With nothing to his name but talent, a Berwyn kid makes good at the opera
by Elias Cepeda

It was the break of a lifetime, but Esteban Andres Cruz was still skeptical. The Berwyn native and actor was being called in to audition for the role of Puck in the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and though he loved the story he wasn’t sure that opera could do right by Shakespeare’s play.

“I had loved this play since high school and done it four times before, so I know the play really well. I thought, ‘Opera doesn’t really know what the F is going on with Shakespeare,’” Cruz recalls with a chuckle.

“As much as people try to put the play and Shakespeare in general on the shelf as a classic, some museum type shit, it was really peoples’ theatre. When people went to see Shakespeare back in the day, it was the equivalent of what baseball or football is today. I loved the opera but I thought, ‘these opera people are so elite, they’d never know what is going on with Shakespeare.’”

Cruz still happily took the audition, it was an honor to even get an audition for the Lyric Opera of Chicago he says, but he also never thought that they would accept his take on Shakespeare. In fact, Cruz had the perfect plan to guarantee that he would not get the part.

“In this play and with Puck’s character in particular, there are a lot of jokes that are gawdy and inappropriate. I think oftentimes people gloss over the language there. I never thought that in a million years they would never pick me but I said, ‘I don’t care, I’m going to be true to what I believe Shakespeare was doing,’ and I highlighted those funny lines that came from the insight of studying it.”

Luckily, Cruz’ plan did not work, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago casting people cast him as Puck for the adaptation which is running through November 23^rd.  Suddenly the dancer and theatre actor found himself in rehearsals and continued to be pleasantly surprised by the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

“You would assume all these horror stories about Opera Divas would be true but everyone here has been so gracious and nice to me,” Cruz says of his opera debut experience thus far.

Ironically, despite his talent and the fact that he worked in the ticket office of the Lyric Opera of Chicago for five years, Cruz says he never planned to work in one of the vaunted house’s productions. Cruz had found critical success on the stage in Chicago and planned to continue along a plan to turn the city’s theatre scene on its’ head when he got the Opera part.

Last Friday night Cruz’ move from the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s ticket office to stage became official, as A Midsummer Night’s Dream premiered. Though the result is unexpected to Cruz in every way, or perhaps because of it, he says performing at the Lyric has been overwhelming.

On paper, Cruz is an unlikely cast-member. He worked in the back office, he is a theatre actor and he is a Latino – self described ‘Mexi-Rican from the hood’ – the only one in this cast. “On opening night it was so nice to have family and some of my best friends there. Coming where I come from, well, there are not many people from where I’m from that are in Opera,” he says.

Despite his own Shakespeare-snob driven reservations about how well the play could be adapted to opera, it is clear that Cruz is humbled by the end product’s quality. He spends more time during our conversation talking about the wonderful music, direction and other actors, including his understudy, than he does speaking about any other single topic. If, like Puck, Cruz is a bit mischievous, he’s also a pro and awed by the stage that he now performs on.

“I’ve seen some friends killed and got sent to jail. So to have some of those people who have known me my whole life there on opening night, and to have all the staff so nice to me and to have the General Director introduce me the way he did and getting to take pictures with the President of the Board, to be considered an integral part of one of the most triumphant productions of the year, is amazing to me. This ‘lil Mexi-Rican from Cicero with nothing to his name but talent…” Cruz trails off.

“I’ve always wanted to play this role. It is a dream come true.”