November 2, 2025 • 5:22 pm 1
Here’s my profile of mezzo-soprano Hongni Wu, Musical America’s New Artist of the Month for November:
When Hongni Wu bounded across the stage as Cherubino in Santa Fe Opera’s Marriage of Figaro last summer, she seemed to compress a teenager’s swirl of conflicted emotions into a single breath. …
Filed under: Musical America, San Francisco Opera, Santa Fe Opera, singers
August 8, 2025 • 11:29 am 1
My Musical America review of Laurent Pelly’s Nozze at Santa Fe Opera:
SANTA FE—The plot of The Marriage of Figaro can feel like a dizzying maze of deceptions and deferred revelations—its intricate turns threatening to overwhelm the human stakes. But in Santa Fe Opera’s ingeniously paced production, directed by Laurent Pelly, every complication slips neatly into place with the precision of a fine timepiece, allowing the machinery of the plot to bring the messy human entanglements that drive the drama into…
Filed under: Mozart, Musical America, review, Santa Fe Opera
August 5, 2025 • 11:58 am Comments Off on Blood Ropes and Broken Gods: ‘Die Walküre’ in Santa Fe
Nothing like seeing Die Walküre accompanied by lightning and storm clouds @Santa Fe Opera. My review for Opera Now:
As its track record of world premieres and off-the-beaten-path repertoire proves, Santa Fe Opera has never shied away from adventurous undertakings. But with this new Die Walküre—its first venture into the Ring and only its third Wagner staging since 2022—the company takes a striking step into territory long left unexplored.
Filed under: Santa Fe Opera, Wagner
August 5, 2025 • 11:52 am Comments Off on Still Bohemians After All These Years
You think you’ve gotten over La bohème. Then a performance comes along and shatters your defenses, breaking your heart again…
My review of James Robinson’s new production spans the length of the 2025 Santa Fe Opera season is online here:
James Robinson’s new production of Puccini’s ubiquitous classic opened Santa Fe Opera’s 2025 season in June and will close it later this month. With its finely observed details and an emotional realism that doesn’t coast on sentimentality, it makes a fitting bookend to a summer that has balanced tradition with reinvention …
Filed under: James Robinson, Puccini, Santa Fe Opera
July 31, 2025 • 12:32 pm Comments Off on Showbiz and Shadows: ‘Rigoletto’ at Santa Fe Opera
It’s great to be back in Santa Fe. Here’s my take on the first of this week’s five productions @Santa Fe Opera:
Santa Fe Opera’s new Rigoletto delivers flashes of vitality that help compensate for a staging that is often muddled. From the outset, Carlo Montanaro’s conducting signalled an intense level of involvement from the orchestra. The opening curse motif, stated a touch more aggressively than usual, is as emphatic as an oracle. …
Filed under: review, Santa Fe Opera, Verdi
August 16, 2024 • 2:17 pm Comments Off on Summer at Santa Fe Opera
Here’s my review essay for Musical America covering three of the productions at the 2024 Santa Fe Opera Festival:
SANTA FE, NM— “Love is terrifying,” observes the protagonist of The Righteous, the affecting new work by Gregory Spears and Tracy K. Smith at Santa Fe Opera. A preacher elected to be governor during the 1980s, he’s referring to the early years of the AIDS crisis in this highly era-specific opera. But his observation emerged as a theme in Louisa Muller’s new production of La traviata, which bookends the company’s summer-based season running from late June to August.
Filed under: directors, Donizetti, Mozart, review, Richard Strauss, Santa Fe Opera, singers
August 12, 2024 • 11:24 am Comments Off on “The Righteous” at Santa Fe Opera
I reviewed Santa Fe Opera’s The Righteous for Musical America. The latest in the company’s distinguished history of commissions, The Righteous is an ambitious collaboration between composer Gregory Spears and poet-librettist Tracy K. Smith. The opera unfolds across the span of the Reagan era and features a large cast to tell the story of a charismatic Southwestern preacher who gets elected as state governor:
Filed under: American opera, Musical America, new music, review, Santa Fe Opera
August 14, 2023 • 10:55 am Comments Off on Mount Green: Monteverdi in Santa Fe
I wrote for Opera Now about Yuval Sharon’s Monteverdi production this summer at Santa Fe Opera:
The rousing fanfare that famously calls the audience to order for Orfeo was preceded by the sound of a modern orchestra tuning up – a preliminary signal of many surprises to come in Santa Fe Opera’s first-ever staging of the epochal work by Claudio Monteverdi.
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Filed under: directors, Monteverdi, review, Santa Fe Opera
August 11, 2023 • 11:29 am Comments Off on Orfeo in Santa Fe
The first of my reviews from Santa Fe Opera’s 2023 season is open through the weekend (no paywall) here. I discuss Yuval Sharon’s extraordinary new production of L’Orfeo (or Orfeo, as they’re calling it), which features new orchestrations commissioned from Nico Muhly.
My review of Tosca is here (but behind the paywall). More reviews upcoming in Opera Now.
Filed under: directors, Monteverdi, Musical America, Puccini, reviews, Santa Fe Opera
August 8, 2018 • 8:35 am Comments Off on Santa Fe Opera 2018: Ariadne, L’italiana, and Butterfly
ANA MARÍA MARTÍNEZ (MADAME BUTTERFLY) AND JOSHUA GUERRERO (F.B. PINKERTON). PHOTO CREDIT: KEN HOWARD FOR SANTA FE OPERA, 2018
Here’s my report on the rest of the 2018 summer season at Santa Fe Opera* for Musical America. I write about Ariadne auf Naxos, L’italiana in Algeri, and Madama Butterfly. My review of the company’s new production of Doctor Atomic is here.
Santa Fe, NM—-During the long reign of founder John Crosby, Santa Fe Opera cultivated its reputation as a “Strauss house.” Yet only three of the composer’s operas had been presented under the company’s third general director, Charles MacKay, before he decided to include a brand-new production of Ariadne auf Naxos as a key attraction of his farewell season.
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[PDF here: Santa Fe 2018 MA reviews]
*Apart from Candide, the one production I had to miss.
Filed under: Musical America, Puccini, review, Rossini, Santa Fe Opera, Strauss
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MEMETERIA by Thomas May 