History has been made at New York‘s Metropolitan Opera House with American Ballet Theatre‘s recent premiere of the “Like Water for Chocolate” production, based on Laura Esquivel‘s novel. The ballet, choreographed by Tony Award winner Christopher Wheeldon, opened to rave reviews on June 22 and will run for 12 performances ending on July 1st, 2023. This is the first time that such a prestigious ballet has been created from a recent Mexican novel.
We caught up with Esquivel during opening night to get her take on the unforgettable evening, and future plans for the award winning novel.

Mexican novelist, screenwriter, and politician, Laura Esquivel wrote her first novel “Como agua para chocolate” (Like Water for Chocolate) in 1989. It became a bestseller in Mexico and the United States, and in 1992 it was developed into an award-winning film. Now it has become a masterful ballet, with further plans ahead.

Esquivel uses magical realism to combine the ordinary and the supernatural. The novel is set during the Mexican Revolution of the early twentieth Century and features the importance of the kitchen and food in the life of its female protagonist, Tita.
The author believes that the kitchen is the most important part of the house and characterizes it as a source of knowledge and understanding that brings pleasure. The title ‘Como agua para chocolate’ is a phrase used in Mexico to refer to someone whose emotions are about to “boil,” because water for chocolate must be just at the boil when the chocolate is added and beaten.

Christine Shevchenko (Mama Elena) in Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate.

The idea for the plot came to Esquivel “while she was cooking the recipes of her mother and grandmother.” The novel follows the story of a young woman named Tita, who longs for her beloved, Pedro, but can never have him because of her mother’s upholding of the family tradition: the youngest daughter cannot marry, but instead must take care of her mother until she dies. Tita is only able to express herself when she cooks.

Laura Esquivel during opening night of  the American Ballet Theatre’s “Like Water for Chocolate” at The Metropolitan Opera House

HOMBRE: How do you feel this evening?
Laura Esquivel: I’m very excited. It will be a very special evening. I went to the opening night in London (with the Royal Ballet), and now I get to see it with the American Ballet Theatre. I’m sure it will be spectacular, the same as the British production.

H: When you wrote the book, did you ever imagine it would have this trajectory; first becoming a feature film, and now a ballet at New York City’s Metropolitan Opera House?
LE: Never, never, never. I never imagined that what is happening would happen. Now it’s this, and we’re waiting for next year for the musical production to open on Broadway. It was held up because of the pandemic, but it will happen soon.

Catherine Hurlin (Gertrudis) in Christopher Wheeldon’s Like Water for Chocolate.

H: What was your initial inspiration for the book?
LE: Well, on one side was my passion for cooking, and on the other hand was my true belief that a person that suffers a repression or castration has the opportunity for redemption, like Tita. In the first half of the novel she is a victim of the wishes of her mother, she didn’t exist by herself. In the second half of the novel she becomes a woman that dreams, and that takes the reins of her own destiny.
That is what interested me, for people to know that it’s not right to sit and say I am a product of an injustice; no, we all have the power within our hands to change and transform anything.

H: What message do you hope audiences will take away from the production?
LE: I can’t answer that. It’s a question for Christopher, who is the director.
What is very clear in the production, and what he understood very well and captured from the novel, is that everything that arises, whether in the kitchen or in the life of Tita, is that it all has to do with the alchemy of love. That is everything.