Santa Fe Opera, 50, looks ahead

Marc Shulgold, Rocky Mountain News

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Santa Fe Opera audiences have experienced a lot during the company's first 50 years. Along with a lot of first-rate opera, they've seen fire and they've seen rain.

Fire destroyed the original theater in July 1967. But the shows went on (in Sweeney Gymnasium) until a new theater could be built.

The rain, of course, appears with regularity across the New Mexican desert landscape - which added to the charm of visiting the semi-outdoor theater a few miles north of town.

Formally dressed patrons seated under the theater's two roofs mingled with operagoers garbed in colorful rain ponchos - required dress if your seat was exposed to the elements. But then, in 1998, a front-to-back covering was built, and ponchos became unnecessary.

In a way, the new-look theater's bold profile of cables, poles and weather-deflection banners symbolizes the organization's disinterest in stagnation.

"We've been looking straight into the future since 2000, when I arrived," says general director Richard Gaddes. "In recent meetings with our board, it's clear that we want to establish ourselves as one of the undisputed most important opera houses in the world."

The 50th season, which began last month, boasts a full slate of new productions of four old favorites, along with the American premiere of a work by a hot young composer. The casts for the summer include such international divas as Anne Sophie von Otter and Natalie Dessay.

"This is a season to celebrate," Gaddes said.

It's remarkable that this bustling, $16 million festival began a half-century ago as the solitary dream of a transplanted New Yorker with a bad case of adolescent asthma. It was that recurring illness that led John Crosby to New Mexico and its high altitude and dry air.

Inspired by the pioneering work of Rudolf Bing at the Met in New York, Crosby returned to Santa Fe after college with the intention of starting an opera company. With help from his parents, he purchased the ranch that would be home to the first theater, seating a modest 480 patrons.

When the young maestro stepped on the podium to conduct Puccini's Madama Butterfly on July 3, 1957, his dream became reality. Before retiring in 2000, Crosby (who died in 2002) would conduct 567 performances in Santa Fe. As Gaddes pointed out, the many innovations that marked Crosby's tenure were there from the start.

"People tend to forget that John started the (country's) first opera apprentice program that first summer. And, in 1957, John commissioned an opera (Marvin David Levy's The Tower)."

Also in that first season was Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, the start of a lifelong love affair between Crosby and the then-neglected operas of Strauss. And let's not forget Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress - a production that brought immeasurable credibility to the fledgling festival through the in-person advice and consent of the renowned Russian composer.

Santa Fe has never shied from new or rare works. In fact, Crosby and company embraced the opportunity to present premieres, and that commitment has not diminished with the Gaddes era.

"Great art requires great risk," the general director said. "Otherwise, the art form stagnates."

Committed leadership is one thing, patron acceptance is quite another. Yet, the attraction of a new piece by an unknown composer has proved a major draw in Santa Fe.

Consider this summer's American premiere of The Tempest by the exciting British composer, Thomas Adès. "It's already sold out," Gaddes said of the staging, which will be unveiled in Santa Fe next weekend.

Gaddes realizes that the investment in new opera is often not repaid. "But in the last few years, our premiered works are having lives beyond their performances here. I think we're being more discerning."

He pointed to Tobias Picker's Emmeline, commissioned by Santa Fe Opera and premiered in 1996. "There's a story that's built on a brilliant subject, transformed into a riveting evening in the theater."

The opera tells the true story of an 18th-century textile mill worker who unwittingly marries the son she'd given up for adoption.

Gaddes said that plans for 2008 include the U.S. premiere of Adriana Mater by the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho, whose L'amour de loin was a hit there in 2002.

Santa Fe Opera faces the same balancing act as other performing arts institutions: Attracting audiences out for something new, while retaining traditionalist opera-goers.

"Our primary responsibility is to sell tickets," Gaddes noted. "Audiences may not agree with what we do, but they've come to expect good things from us. When we do a production, they don't want to miss it."

Repertory and staging decisions are not made lightly, he noted. "It's hard to describe in words what we're looking for. We certainly don't want derivative, neo-romantic stuff.

"Even in standard rep, such as Carmen, we have to be careful in the staging. Planning this summer's production, we realized the opera had become an extravaganza. So we stripped it to the bone, fashioning a simple evening of great theater."

The repertory

For time and ticket information for these Santa Fe Opera productions, call 1-800-280-4654 or go to www.santafeopera.org.

• Carmen (Bizet): Anne Sophie von Otter stars (replaced in the final two performances by Beth Clayton), joined by Jennifer Black, William Joyner and (sharing the role of Escamillo) David Pittsinger and Laurent Naouri.

• The Magic Flute (Mozart): Natalie Dessay is the headliner in this fanciful new production. Susanna Phillips takes over for Dessay in the final two performances. Other cast members include Heather Buck, Toby Spence and Joshua Hopkins.

• Cinderella (Massenet): Joyce DiDonato sings the title role. Other principals include Eglise Gutierrez, Kristine Jepson and Judith Forst.

• Salome (Strauss): Janice Watson sings the title role, with Greer Grimsley, Ragnar Ulfung, Anne-Marie Owens and Dimitri Pittas.

• The Tempest (Thomas Adès): This setting of Shakespeare's play is the first full-scale opera by the young English composer. The American premiere takes place July 29.

Shulgoldm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5296