New works, old favorites
2018 Santa Fe Opera season is highlighted by NM-centered ‘Doctor Atomic’
Leonard Bernstein’s “Candide” and John Adams’ “Doctor Atomic” form both bookends and centerpieces of the 2018 Santa Fe Opera season.
The company’s production of what is considered Bernstein’s masterwork coincides with the composer’s 100th anniversary. The season also marks the Santa Fe debut of “Doctor Atomic,” which opened at the San Francisco Opera in 2005. Organizers wrapped up the summer program with a trio of classics, including Puccini’s “Madame Butterfly,” Rossini’s “The Italian Girl in Algiers” and Strauss’ “Ariadne Auf Naxos.”
“Candide” bridges opera and musical theater, SFO general director Charles MacKay said.
“It’s a great choice for people who may not be familiar with opera.
“It’s light and dark; it’s biting satire; it takes big stabs at major institutions,” he continued. “It’s still very contemporary and very apt.”
“Doctor Atomic” focuses on the profound stress and anxiety surrounding the Los Alamos workers a month before the testing of the first atomic bomb.
Audience members will trade the lights of Los Alamos for the lights of Nagasaki. Famed opera and theater director Peter Sellars will direct; he also wrote the libretto.
“The stage is wide open,” MacKay said, “and it is a fairly spare production. This is like a major domo telling epic stories of these events in 1945.”
The musical lyricism of the tragic “Madame Butterfly” draws both newcomers and traditionalists to the opera, MacKay said.
Its story of the naive Japanese girl and her ruthless American lover still resonates, he added.
It’s “the exploitation of the innocent young Japanese girl by the powerful American,” MacKay said, “even though I think on some level he loves her; but he takes advantage of her and abandons her. The fact that it depicts suicide also adds another layer to the sense of tragedy.”
“The Italian Girl from Algiers” is a delightful romp.
“It’s a silly story,” MacKay said. “It has all the elements of Italian opera. It’s almost a farce and kind of a sitcom.”
The woman in question searches for her lover after inserting herself into a harem. Santa Fe has updated the opera to the early 20th century, with a clever aviatrix as its heroine.
“It was the runaway hit of the 2002 season,” MacKay said.
“Ariadne Auf Naxos,” along with “Madame Butterfly,” was performed at Santa Fe’s 1957 debut.
“It’s sort of a collision of tragic opera and comedy,” MacKay said. “The premise is that, in a great house, probably in Vienna, there is a party being hosted by a wealthy nobleman who considers a serious opera and a lighter opera formed by a group of comedians. The major domo decides, because time is limited, we have to combine them.”
This summer marks MacKay’s final season before his retirement to hiking and fly fishing.
He says the landmark hasn’t sunk in yet.
“I’m way, way too busy. I just want to savor this glorious moment.”