SANTA FE — Its mountaintop amphitheater surrounded by dramatic views, Santa Fe Opera is America's pre-eminent summer opera festival. Now in its 60th season, with a history rich in premieres and cultivating up-and-coming singers, it's certainly popular with the North Texas crowd; at any performance you're guaranteed to run into people you know.
This year's offerings include the world premiere of The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, by composer Mason Bates and librettist Mark Campbell, and rare performances of Handel's Alcina and Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel. Lucia di Lammermoor and Die Fledermaus are the standard-rep entries, filling out a season running through Aug. 26.
Destructive creativity
The Steve Jobs opera continues a modern thread, dating from at least John Adams' 1987 Nixon in China, of what have been called CNN operas, portraying transformative figures and events in recent history. Jobs, of course, was the co-founder and, with two episodes of running other companies (unexplored here), head of Apple Inc. Only 90 minutes long, the opera jumps back and forth among Jobs' first childhood experiments, the origins and operations of Apple, his two relationships and his memorial service.
(R)evolution is a reminder that creativity can come at the price of self-absorbed, obsessive-compulsive behavior destructive to human relationships. As portrayed by Edward Parks, with a well-focused baritone, Jobs is rarely a happy man; victims of his misanthropy include his girlfriend Chrisann Brennan (Jessica E. Jones) and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak (Garrett Sorenson). Only Jobs' wife Laurene, radiantly personified by Sasha Cooke, and, to a lesser extent, his Buddhist guru Kobun Chino Otogawa (the creamy bass Wei Wu) manage to cultivate some humanity beneath the hard exterior.
Bates, known for mixing electronica with conventional orchestrations, incorporates digital twangs, swoops and pulses, sometimes with powerful bass throbs, along with pleasant burbles of winds and washes and rustles of strings. There's plenty of relentless rhythmic energy, but beyond what could be called minimalism. Jobs and Wozniak sing jazzy duets.
Conductor Michael Christie coordinated everything with a sure hand on Aug. 4, with firm choral contributions coached by Susanne Sheston. Voices are amplified, but only as much as needed over sometimes loud accompaniments.
With designer Victoria "Vita" Tzykun's shifting tall boxes animated by 59 Productions' brilliant projections — from Jobs' father's garage to busy printed circuits -- with dramatic lighting by Japhy Weideman, the visual effects are stunning. Deftly staged by Kevin Newbury, (R)evolution is, as with many 19th-century operas, unabashedly populist and immediate in impact. I'd be glad to see it again.
Political chaos parodied
In Paul Curran's witty staging, Rimsky-Korsakov's fairy-tale opera made for a most entertaining evening Aug. 3. Identified as a co-production with the Dallas Opera, it presumably will come to the Winspear Opera House in some future season. Dallas Opera music director Emmanuel Villaume is conducting — and certainly did a fine job Aug. 3.
Alexander Pushkin, on whose poem the libretto is based, certainly intended political satire, and some will sense contemporary parallels to the opera's pompously clueless Tsar Dodon. An Astrologer provides prologue and epilogue, and introduces the golden rooster that can sense and warn of danger.
After a disastrous battle in which Dodon's two sons kill each other, Dodon is seduced by the exotic Queen of Shemakha, who agrees to become his wife. But things then completely disintegrate, the Astrologer having the last word.
The orchestral writing mixes bright-colored Russian impressionism and echoes of Russian folk idioms. The Queen weaves her spell with showcase vocalism alternately slithery and flickering, impressively delivered by soprano Venera Gimadieva. Barry Banks supplies the Astrologer's high, stentorian "tenore-altino," Meredith Arwady a mega-contralto for the servant Amelfa. Sturdy vocalism is also supplied by Tim Mix (Dodon), Richard Smagur (Prince Guidon), Jorge Espino (Prince Afron) and Kevin Burdette (General Polkan). Kasia Borowiec pipes brightly as the behind-the-scenes voice of the Golden Cockerel. Choral contributions were again excellent.
Designer Gary McCann supplies a great swoosh of what appears to be metallic scrim that doubles as a screen for Driscoll Otto's playful projections; the Cockerel is realized as a colorful animation. Brilliant costumes, also by McCann, evoke imperial Russia.
Amorous island misadventures
Even by convoluted norms of baroque opera, Handel's Alcina is tricky to follow. The eponymous island seductress lures men into her amorous trap, then, when done with their services, turns them into rocks, waves and wild animals. Her latest victim is Ruggiero, who's been hypnotized into forgetting his betrothed, Bradamante.
To rescue him, Bradamante shows up in male drag, pretending to be her brother. Alcina's sister Morgana is so smitten by this pretend young man, "Ricciardo," that she spurns the attentions of the general Oronte. To complicate matters, by gender-bending baroque opera conventions the central male character, Ruggiero, would have been sung by a high-voice male castrato — or, as here, a mezzo-soprano.
As if inherent confusion weren't enough, stage director David Alden clutters the proceedings with almost nonstop dancing, acrobatics and generally incomprehensible nonsense — surrealism meets theater of the absurd. Designer Gideon Davey's setting the action circa 1950 could have worked, but the two mini-stages on the stage and a slide-on-and-off wall of doors didn't clarify matters.
That said, Handel's music vividly expresses the most human of emotions: lovesickness, jealousy, anxiety and rage. Close your eyes, and this Alcina is a feast of fabulous singing.
Elza van den Heever, who sang the title role in the Dallas Opera's recent Norma, portrays Handel's seductress with a lustrous soprano but also an unfortunate tendency to end phrases under pitch. Rounding out the excellent cast are Paula Murrihy (Ruggiero), Daniele Mack (Bradamante), Anna Christy (Morgana), Alek Shrader (Oronte), Christian Van Horn (Melisso) and Jacquelyn Stucker (Oberto). Chief conductor Harry Bicket got impressively stylish playing from the orchestra on Aug. 2, although the harpsichord continuo could have used some subtle amplification.
Scott Cantrell, former classical music critic of The Dallas Morning News, has also written for The New York Times and numerous music magazines.
Plan your life
The Santa Fe Opera season runs through Aug. 26. For information and tickets, go to santafeopera.org or call 1-800-280-4654.
