SANTA FE, N.M. • Santa Fe Opera has deep connections to Opera Theatre of St. Louis. OTSL's founder, Richard Gaddes, came from Santa Fe, as did its second general director, Charles MacKay. Elements from OTSL's program book to its young artist program are based on those of its older sibling; the two companies share many artists, and it's almost impossible to visit without running into other St. Louisans.
MacKay returned to run SFO a decade ago; he'll retire at the end of this season. He's built and improved on what he found there and will leave it in good shape for his successor, Robert K. Meya, currently the company's director of external affairs.
The 2018 season was a mixed bag for the company with the striking home in scenic mountains. Here's a brief look at each of its five operas, in the order in which I saw them.
Puccini: 'Madame Butterfly'
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The 2010 production, by the late Lee Blakely, was realized by Matthew Ozawa, co-director of "An American Soldier" at OTSL this season. Seen July 30, it was the first performance for the second cast of soprano Ana María Martínez and tenor Joshua Guerrero.
As Cio-Cio San, Martínez was the complete package. She's beautiful and dramatically intense; her distinctive voice has an almost mezzo coloring with a flawless high range. Guerrero is tall and handsome; his big voice has an Italianate ring. They’re good together.
Mezzo Megan Marino was outstanding as Suzuki, completely present dramatically, with a lovely voice; I wish she’d had more to sing. The warm-voiced baritone Nicholas Pallesen was perfectly cast as Sharpless, a decent man trying (and failing) to head off a tragedy. Tenor Matthew DiBattista, a frequent visitor at OTSL, was well-cast as Goro, the marriage broker; mezzo-soprano Hannah Hagerty made Kate Pinkerton a sympathetic figure. Conductor John Fiore led effectively in the pit.
Bernstein: 'Candide'
Leonard Bernstein reworked his 1956 operetta "Candide" for decades, leaving many versions. Santa Fe's production is supposedly based on the Scottish Opera’s edition, but senior artistic advisor Matthew A. Epstein served as dramaturg and incorporated too many outtakes from the cutting room floor. It was frequently dull and consistently talky, particularly in the musically lacking second act. It runs three hours but felt longer; you can read Voltaire’s satirical novella in less time.
The good news was tenor Alek Shrader's appealing work in the title role; he has a beautiful voice and great presence. Soprano Brenda Rae, as Cunegonde, had some great high notes but not much else. Baritone Kevin Burdette, as Voltaire, Pangloss, Cacambo and Martin, moved smoothly from role to role; mezzo Helene Schneiderman, as the Old Lady, did her best with mostly dull material.
Laurent Pelly's direction did nothing to move the story along; his brightly colored costumes were amusing. Scenic designer Chantal Thomas's clever set featured sheaves of paper, books and a portrait; the projections, from 59 Productions, provided some fine effects. Conductor Harry Bicket added energy to the evening, starting with a sprightly rendition of the Overture.
Strauss: 'Ariadne auf Naxos'
"Ariadne," seen Aug. 1, had the best singing of the season, from the Footman (Brent Michael Smith) to the Tenor/Bacchus (Bruce Sledge). In this opera-within-an-opera, soprano Liv Redpath was charming as the entertainer Zerbinetta, and nailed her monster aria “Grossmächtige Prinzessin." I missed the Composer's usual mezzo vocal timbre, but soprano Amanda Majeski was otherwise perfect in the trouser role, coltish, emotionally over the top, and vocally flawless.
Soprano Amanda Echalaz as Prima Donna/Ariadne had the notes but was occasionally shrill. The nymphs Najade, Dryade and Echo, sung by Meryl Dominguez, Samantha Gossard and Sarah Tucker, were well-matched and sang gorgeously.
Director Tim Albery's innovation was to have the Prologue and, in the opera, the comedians' parts sung in his own well-done English translation, with the serious passages in the original German. It works. Conductor James Gaffigan had a few minor ensemble problems, but his pacing was great.
Tobias Hoheisel's set for the Prologue was a claustrophobic hallway, lined with doors, that served as the backstage area for the wealthy patrons' performance area. The Opera was set in a circular space that resembled a drop of water descending. Ariadne was confined to a red-lined egg-shaped object; when she wasn't singing, she lay inside it, looking uncomfortable. Albery could have been more imaginative in staging the nymphs. Hoheisel's costumes were generally fine, but Bacchus and Ariadne were dressed in dreary black.
John Adams: 'Doctor Atomic'
Santa Fe has a unique relationship with the Manhattan Project: The lights of Los Alamos, where J. Robert Oppenheimer and his fellow physicists worked to split the atom, are visible from the opera house. In our day of renewed concern about nuclear warfare, "Doctor Atomic" is exceptionally relevant.
In the company's new production by librettist-director Peter Sellars, the opera includes a performance of the traditional Corn Dance by members of three local pueblos, and "downwinders" — residents whose cancers were brought on by the nuclear testing — appear as supernumeraries. Contemporary dress and hairstyles are worn by all; at times, the performance looked like a staging rehearsal.
The performance Aug. 2 was unforgettable for the huge electrical storm that came up during the first act, sending rain horizontally through the open-sided opera house. The singers continued valiantly as water swirled around them; the violins and violas fled their unprotected portion of the pit, leaving conductor Matthew Aucoin without upper strings for most of the act. Given the opera’s frequent references to the elements, there were some unintended laugh lines, as when General Leslie Groves came on and demanded, “What the hell is wrong with the weather?"
The SFO assembled a solid cast, headed by baritone Ryan McKinney as Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer; he gave a strong performance overall. The other scientists, all well-cast, were bass Andrew Harris as Edward Teller, tenor Ben Bliss as Robert Wilson and baritone Tim Mix as the meteorologist Frank Hubbard. The otherwise excellent but slender bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch was Groves, physically miscast as a chunky man who sings about his weight gain.
The gifted St. Louis native Julia Bullock gave an outstanding portrayal of Kitty Oppenheimer, singing richly and giving an intense dramatic portrayal. She did the best she could with the banal pseudo-poetry of Sellars’ assembled-from-other-people's-words libretto, but her scenes seemed extraneous in a story dominated by male scientists. Contralto Meredith Arwady, as her housekeeper Pasqualita, sang sonorously. The chorus was superb.
The opera would benefit from trimming. It's poorly staged; Sellars seems addicted to constant, frenetic motion, whether meaningful or not. That ranges from supernumerary scientists running back and forth for no evident reason to a quartet of dancers who constantly come onstage to distract from the singers with apparently random movements. He ruined the musical high point of the opera, Oppenheimer’s aria “Batter my heart,” by requiring the baritone to sing it from the stage floor while writhing and gesturing.
His greatest error came at the opera’s end. The focus onstage is a huge silver ball, representing the bomb; the focus of the story is whether or not it will go off when tested, and the tension builds as the climax approaches. The libretto says "the bomb detonates." But there’s nothing in this staging to indicate that the gadget worked; it’s an anticlimax. Sellars was present for the performance.
Rossini: 'L’Italiana in Algeri'
After all that sturm und drang, it was a relief to have some tuneful comic escapism in the form of "L’Italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers)" on Aug. 3. In this update to the early 20th century, the heroine Isabella is a pilot, come with her suitor Taddeo in search of her lover, Lindoro, the prisoner of Mustafà, the Bey of Algiers.
The 2002 production, by the late Edward Hastings, has been updated by director Shawna Lucey with some hip-hop dance moves and a sight gag involving Twitter. The clever scenic design by Robert Innes Hopkins offers a set like a pop-up book, model bi-planes and Mustafà as a muscular strongman. David C. Woolard’s colorful costumes were just right.
Conductor Corrado Rovaris kept things zippy. The cast was excellent, led by mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack as Isabella; she provided superb bel canto singing, along with intelligence and beauty. Her Lindoro was tenor Jack Swanson, tall, handsome, and tossing off his difficult, high-flying music with apparent ease.
Baritone Patrick Carfizzi showed off a big, well-produced voice as Taddeo, along with good comic timing. Bass Scott Conner never blustered as Mustafà; soprano Stacey Geyer, as his cast-off wife Elvira, mezzo Suzanne Hendrix as her spunky servant Zulma and baritone Craig Verm as Haly, long-suffering captain of the Algerian Corsairs, added to the great singing and general hilarity. Susanne Sheston's chorus were spot-on, celebrating the emblems of Italy: Gucci, Sophia Loren, wine and pizza.
What Santa Fe Opera • When Through Aug. 25 • Where 301 Opera Drive, Santa Fe, N.M. • How much $37-$310 • More info 1-800-280-4654; santafeopera.org