Three Mexican Tenors Unite Opera, Mariachi and Family at Pacific Symphony
- Lola Olvera
- 6 hours ago
- 8 min read
Pacific Symphony’s Principal Pops Conductor Enrico Lopez-Yañez leads a full orchestra, mariachi band and trio of operatic tenors – including his father – in a dynamic program of operatic classics, Broadway tunes and Mexican favorites.
His father singing Rossini and Puccini during the day. Playing Chicago and Elton John in the car. Observing backstage at major opera productions across Europe. Sitting in on mariachi recording sessions in Mexico. Learning classical, jazz, mariachi and rock music. That was the childhood that Enrico Lopez-Yañez enjoyed as the son of a leading operatic tenor father and pianist mother.
This eclectic musical upbringing would cultivate in him a fervent love for all kinds of music and a deep appreciation for the capacity of an orchestra to tackle any genre, two crucial traits which he brings to his role as Pacific Symphony’s newest principal pops conductor. Since he began his tenure in 2023, he has been at the helm of orchestral crowd pleasers like “The Music of Star Wars” while also making a point to highlight his Mexican heritage through concerts like the Latin music and jazz trumpet fusion of “Latin Fire with Arturo Sandoval” and “La Vida Loca,” a celebration of ‘90s Latin pop hits.
“An Enchanted Evening” is “just continuing along that trend of programming for what is a hugely rich, diverse Latino community in Orange County and Southern California,” Lopez-Yañez said. “And now that I've been in Costa Mesa for a couple years now, it also (is) an opportunity for audiences to learn a little bit about me through my musical upbringing …. This will be the first time that they actually get to meet one of my family members on stage, (where I’m) getting to sing and perform with my father and highlight him as a part of the season as well.”
“An Enchanted Evening with the Three Mexican Tenors” brings together Pacific Symphony, Mariachi Garibaldi de Jaime Cuéllar, and three operatic tenors for a dynamic program of operatic classics, Broadway tunes and Mexican favorites.
Mexican tenors Jorge Lopez-Yañez and Afredo Carrillo and Mexican-Venezuelan baritenor Bernardo Bermudez provide a unique take on their predecessors the Three Tenors, the highly successful operatic trio featuring Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti and Spanish tenors Plácido Domingo and José Carreras performing classical arias, popular Italian songs and Broadway hits.
Bringing Mariachi into the Mix
Since their successful debut with the Nashville Symphony in 2023, the Three Mexican Tenors have performed with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Tucson Symphony and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. However, their latest concert at the Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall on May 15 and 16 will be one of their first shows to incorporate a mariachi band alongside the full orchestra.
Mariachi Garibaldi de Jaime Cuéllar is no stranger to crossover mariachi collaborations. Founded in 1994 by Jaime Cuéllar and now under the direction of his son, Jimmy "El Pollo" Cuéllar, Mariachi Garibaldi has become one of the leading mariachi ensembles in Southern California, and has shared the stage with celebrated Mexican artists such as Pepe Aguilar, Juan Gabriel, Pedro Fernandez, Paquita del Barrio and Aida Cuevas. Last year, the group joined Pacific Symphony for an orchestral celebration of Mexican culture, “¡Fiesta Sinfonica! Con Mariachi Garibaldi!”
“The mariachi blending was super special for me and it's something that I have seen and witnessed here in Mexico done particularly in my dad's hometown, which is Aguascalientes, Mexico,” Lopez-Yañez said. “There's a long history of orchestras collaborating with mariachis because of some of the big artists like Juan Gabriel and many, many others, you know, Vicente Fernández, all these mariachi artists who had huge orchestra shows along with mariachi.”
His father, Jorge Lopez-Yañez, a leading tenor who has performed on operatic stages around the world, emphasizes the longtime mutual admiration between operatic tenors and their mariachi counterparts, with many great singers, like acclaimed ranchera singer and actor Jorge Negrete, starting off singing opera before switching to mariachi, and vice versa. Jorge Lopez-Yañez says that many operatic tenors he knew from Mexico got their start in mariachi.
“I started singing mariachi music and a lot of other colleagues of mine like Francisco Araiza, Ramón Vargas, Fernando de la Mora, many singers, we started the same, started with mariachi singing because it requires a really good voice to be able to sing that,” he said. “That's how I took off, I started with mariachi, from there, somebody heard me, they said, you have a really nice, natural tenor voice, and I jumped into opera.”
He has passed down his love of opera and mariachi to his son. As a child, Enrico Lopez-Yañez traveled with his father to opera rehearsals and productions across Europe. When his father was recording his first mariachi album in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, Enrico Lopez-Yañez’s experience watching the musicians during the recording sessions inspired him to play mariachi trumpet, and then study trumpet classically. Later, Jorge Lopez-Yañez would support his son’s burgeoning conducting career by connecting him with opportunities in Mexico.
“I feel so proud to see this guy, how he works on stage, how he talks to the audiences, how the musicians, the instrumentalists, they fall in love with him,” said Jorge Lopez-Yañez. “One of the biggest highlights of my life is being with this guy on stage.”
Left, tenor Jorge Lopez-Yañez. Right, his son, conductor Enrico Lopez-Yañez. Enrico will conduct his father in an upcoming concert with the Pacific Symphony and Mariachi Garibaldi de Jaime Cuéllar. Photos courtesy of the Pacific Symphony
Enrico Lopez-Yañez also feels honored to be able to collaborate with his father, despite his tendency to be mischievous onstage.
“He often will sing things in rehearsal a certain way and then he does them totally differently in concert, because he likes to keep things live and fresh,” he said. “He has this huge smile, like he's almost picking on me live in concert to keep me on my toes or something. But we have a lot of fun on stage. It's incredible to me to be working next to the person that I grew up watching perform onstage with the world's greatest conductors and greatest orchestras and then to get to do that with him now is amazing.”
In addition to the tenors, Enrico will be conducting the full Pacific Symphony, whose talent and flexibility he considers necessary to navigate a dynamic program like “An Enchanted Evening,” which shifts from the opera and Neapolitan art songs of the 1700s and 1800s to the Broadway and Mexican pop stars of the late 1900s and early 2000s. The first half includes beloved songs like Luigi Denza’s “Funiculì funiculá,” Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “Some Enchanted Evening,” Francesco Sartori’s “Con te partiró” (popularized by Andrea Bocelli) and Rolf Løvland’s “You Raise Me Up” (popularized by Josh Groban).
In the second half, Mariachi Garibaldi joins the Pacific Symphony onstage to play homage to some of Mexico’s most beloved artists, Luis Miguel and Juan Gabriel, and perform additional Mexican classics. Two songs included in Jorge Lopez-Yañez’s 2001 album “Fiesta Mexicana Con Mariachi,” the album that was so formative to young Enrico Lopez-Yañez, also make an appearance: “Granada” and “Peleas de Gallo.”
MUSICAL COLLABORATIONS CAN BE EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCES
Oscar Garibay, a leading mariachi educator in Orange County, says that while mariachi performers can sometimes be criticized for eschewing tradition when they cross over into orchestral or pop music, mariachi itself was shaped by musicians taking inspiration from other cultures. Early mariachi borrowed the bolero style from Cuba and adopted waltzes from Europe, turning them into staples of mariachi music today. Modern ensembles like Mariachi Garibaldi continue to reach new audiences through their crossover collaborations.
“I think the goal (of mariachi crossover music) was to try to get Hispanics into the orchestras, into the concert halls,” Garibay said. “Usually you don't see a lot of Hispanics going to the symphony or classical music halls. A lot of Hispanics like going to clubs or they like having parties at their houses and they don't get to really get an exposure to classical music.”
Mariachi education wasn’t available to Garibay as a child, so he grew up playing orchestral music and didn’t shift his focus to mariachi until college. He spent many years teaching mariachi on the K-12 level, and now teaches collegiate mariachi at Santa Ana College, Chapman University, California State University, Fullerton and University of California, Davis, along with managing four professional mariachi bands under the umbrella of OC Mariachi Company. He is passionate about integrating mariachi studies more deeply into high schools and collegiate programs, particularly in areas with high populations of Latinos.
While seemingly disparate genres, mariachi and opera can be more similar than people think. Both genres favor tenors for their striking and expressive quality, and whether they’re performing in a crowded restaurant or a 3,000-seat theater, both mariachi and opera singers depend on their ability to project immense vocal power, usually without amplification. Still, Jorge Lopez-Yañez is quick to point out that opera singers are distinguished by their phenomenal range.
“When you sing mariachi music, the range of your voice doesn't go too high, doesn't go too low, stays in the middle, maybe seven, eight notes,” he said. “But when you sing opera, man, those notes go from here to here. It's a big difference. Much higher voice range you need to sing an opera like ‘La Fille du Régiment,’ ‘Rigoletto,’ ‘La Traviata.’”
Garibay says that he wants opera listeners to recognize how musically and emotionally versatile a mariachi ensemble can be.
“It's not just them playing loud, festive music. It could be soft, it could be sad, mariachi can evoke a lot of feelings,” he said.
For the mariachi fans who are new to opera, he suggests that they notice the intentionality, vocal range and conducting.
“I want them going into the concert hall and seeing how rehearsed everything is, how detail-oriented the singers are in the way they phrase things, the way they sing, their vocal ranges … how the conductor is able to make musical adjustments live during the performance and how the musicians react to that,” he said.
Ultimately, it takes heart to sing both mariachi or opera, say Enrico and Jorge Lopez-Yañez, and they’re only two sides of the same coin when it comes to emotionally resonating with an audience.
“The heart and soul of these genres of music are also very much in alignment,” Enrico Lopez-Yañez said. “There is so much in the way that an opera presents these huge emotions and the reason opera is sung and orchestrated at these grand scales is because they're trying to paint these pictures of these giant overwhelming emotions, whether it's love or anger or fear. And the way that composers wrote and were able to recreate something that we oftentimes can't explain in words is by using the power of the orchestra and the human voice at these huge scales. Mariachi does the same thing. It's these incredibly romantic ballads or huge powerful emotionally driven songs that through the power of a mariachi … they're able to depict that as well.”
‘An Enchanted Evening with the Three Mexican Tenors’
When: 8 p.m. May 15 and 16; Principal Pops Conductor Enrico Lopez-Yañez will share behind-the-scenes insights into the show in the main lobby at 7:15 p.m.
Where: Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, 615 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
Cost: Tickets start at $58
Information: pacificsymphony.org
