Steady on, Santa Fe. Summer’s nearly here, bringing world-class music festivals, out-there programming and, uh-oh, potential cultural overload.

The acequia running nearby shows a few yellow leaves; too cool for breakfast outside today; the overgrown garden needs a firm hand. Summer is slowing and the summer music scene is finito. An imaginary curtain rang down at the Santa Fe Opera last Saturday night, and the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival closed up for the year. So now—a little accountability?

Take note, please, of a preliminary event at last Sunday’s Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival concert: the sight of a large, black-clad man being tugged through the crowded lobby at the Lensic by a small girl. The child? A determined young daughter. The gentleman? This season’s distinguished artist-in-residence, Alan Gilbert. Her urgent excuse? I didn’t ask.

Every time I hear a fine, well-produced contralto voice, I get the chills. Maybe it goes back to my grandmother’s old Schumann-Heink 78s. Kathleen Ferrier’s “Embarme dich,” and anything else s

Anyone who’s been hanging around the Santa Fe Opera for any length of time has heard, until quite recently, a really terrific amount of Richard Strauss.

Forty years old already? It can’t be that long since I heard several concerts at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival’s inaugural season—six Sunday afternoons back in 1973.

Ever since its 1926 premiere in Warsaw, Karol Szymanowski’s King Roger has been one of those conundrums of 20th-century music. Generically speaking, is it an opera? A dramatic oratorio? A morality play? Is it a work of penetrating insight into psycho-sexual complexities or a murky slog through mystico-symbological pretense?

If you’ve ever wondered about the word “grand” in grand opera, look no further than the compelling production of Rossini’s tragic opera, Maometto II, now on view at the Santa Fe Opera.

Just ask Marc Neikrug, longtime artistic director of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, what he thinks about audiences here in the City Diff, and be prepared for a shock. "They are way, way better than in New York: more open, more engaged, more willing to be surprised," Neikrug says. "They really want to be here, and they’re loving everything the festival does."

When you stop to think about it, Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers is pretty much a silent movie, yes? Except with sound, of course. Consider the setting: ancient Ceylon à la MGM’s back lot. Consider the