Fifty years of paradox and possibilities at The Santa Fe Opera.
Opera's always been an ornery art form. Chuck Jones' Bugs vs. Elmer classic, "What's Opera, Doc?" immortalizes its uneasy blend of the sublime and the ridiculous, with an emphasis on the latter. You just can't get away from the fact that there's something inherently paradoxical about opera.
To begin with, there's the matter of its audience. Alan Gilbert, music director of the Santa Fe Opera, says that "It's for everybody. Opera is popular music." Gilbert doesn't necessarily mean hip-hop or juke-box "popular," but the broader sense that it's a form of musical expression composed about and for the people. Think Verdi, whose left-wing scores rallied the
risorgimento
. Think Mozart, whose first performances of
The Magic Flute
delighted middle-class audiences for weeks at Vienna's middle-to-lowbrow Freihaustheater auf der Weiden. Think Bizet, whose
Carmen
at the SFO this summer has been sold out for weeks.
On the other hand, you'll hear plenty of people say that opera is not and never has been populist. Tom Morris, the SFO's head of administration and operations, is blunt when he says, "Opera isn't for everybody." For some, tiara and top hat prejudices
need to be overcome, and the SFO's educational, outreach, and audience development programs are designed to do just that. A notorious local example of operatic tensions surfaced at the SFO-commissioned 1970 performances of Luciano Berio's satiric/ironic
Opera
, where jeers vied with cheers.
Alex Ross, The New Yorker's witty, astute music critic and lover of paradox, opined in a recent piece that "Opera remains an open secret, at once ubiquitous and unknown." Huh? Well, Ross suggests a couple of things here. On the one hand, everybody can, or could, whistle the so-called Toreador Song from
Carmen
, but they may not know that its flashy pomposity is meant to convey hunky Escamillo's shallow self-obsession. On a deeper level, Ross' paradox emphasizes that no matter how often we may encounter opera on television or via CD, we don't really
know it until we've sat in an opera house and felt our hackles rise and/or tear ducts flow.
That happened at the SFO last year with Anthony Dean Griffey's
Peter Grimes
. And with Janice Watson's
Daphne
in 1996. And Mignon Dunn as Susan B in Virgil Thompson's
The Mother of Us All
in 1976. And Loren Driscoll's
Tom Rakewell
in 1957. I could fill pages recounting SFO performances over the past 50 years that have stripped opera of its paradoxical secrecy and made us know it.
This was John Crosby's vision when he invented the SFO in
1956: a company unlike any other, one that could sing and act and put across, in English, a repertory that combined the familiar with the unexpected, giving its audiences the chance to know these works in the way that Ross suggests. And, paradoxically, Crosby was just about the most unlikely man to ever make it happen.
He wasn't merely modest or self-effacing. Forrest Moses, prominent painter and long-time SFO observer, has called him "pathologically shy." Unfamiliar social situations caused him acute distress. His relations with the press and public were generally awkward or off-putting. To many, Crosby remained an enigma. One of his most reliable and gifted conductors for over 20 years, Robert Baustian,
commented recently, "It was hard to get to know him. Who really did know him?"
He and his three successive opera houses, the last now fittingly called The Crosby Theatre, acquired in many quarters a reputation for aloofness. From the beginning he was respected as a master of detail-financial, physical, musical-though his absolutism created problems from time to time. According to former senior
staffers, in the '70s Crosby was encouraged to delegate responsibilities as the company grew ever larger. Crosby initially agreed to do so but continued to micromanage operations, causing several staffers to leave in frustration.
Until the end of his tenure at the SFO (he retired in 2000), he remained very much boss of the company he'd created. That's a 44-season record, unmatched by such other operatic super-managers as Rudolph Bing or Joe Volpe at the Met, Wolfgang Wagner at Bayreuth, or John Christie at Glyndebourne. Crosby, a paradox of self-effacement and visionary energy, surpassed them all.
In nearly every respect, the first of those 44 seasons was the most remarkable. Summer music in the Rocky Mountain West had cranked up with the opening of the Central City
Opera in 1932, and the Aspen Festival got started in 1949. But Santa Fe in 1956 was a different story. Painters, sculptors, photographers and writers had found their place here for decades. This was a sort of Greenwich Village or Provincetown West, with a relatively innocent sophistication and a better climate. The music scene lagged far behind the visual arts with occasional concerts by touring artists. Still, Crosby felt the town would support his opera.
He'd known the area since his days at the Los Alamos Ranch School in the early '40s, and his parents had bought a summer place near Tano Road. Community leaders thought highly of Crosby's plan for a modest summer opera season, impressed by the young man's (he turned 31 that first season) seriousness and grasp of detail.
So, with community blessing and a loan from his father, he acquired the San Juan Ranch north of town, began building his outdoor theater, and set about recruiting a company.
The mezzo Regina Sarfaty, one of 12 artists engaged for principal roles in the seven operas scheduled for 1957, recalled Crosby's invitation to come to Santa Fe. She was a senior student, 22 years old and definitely a Brooklyn girl, at The Juilliard School where Crosby was a
répétiteur
in the opera program. One day he approached
her shyly, head down, asking if she would consider joining a small opera company in Santa Fe. Never having been west of Tanglewood, Sarfaty asked, "Where's Santa Fe?" And then, "Why opera there?"
Crosby's reply: "Because it never rains." After that surrealistic exchange, Sarfaty forgot about the proposal until, at graduation, the would-be impresario handed her a contract. For one hundred dollars a week (not bad in '57) she'd undertake five roles. She took the job, arrived here in June, and was Suzuki in
Madama Butterfly
on opening night, July 3, 1957.
Although few knew it at the time, opera history was made that night. Laurence Crosby
congratulated his son: "You've got a winner." The largely local audience in the small theater (480 seats) agreed. A charming production of Mozart's
Così fan tutte
followed. Shortly thereafter, the national press would take note of SFO's
The Rake's Progress
, with the composer Stravinsky in attendance, and despite cold, wind and rain, Robert Craft conducted an unforgettable production of this then-controversial score. The SFO was on the map, not only for this show, but also for its first commissioned work, Marvin David Levy's one-acter,
The Tower
. And the die was cast for the SFO as a Strauss-haus with a performance of the composer's rarely performed, enchanting
Ariadne auf Naxos
, now a repertory staple everywhere.
From the beginning, Crosby had found his space, his company,
and his repertory concept. And today, 50 years later, much of this remains remarkably intact. When I asked veteran members of the company about changes since the early
days, I usually heard that although the SFO was bigger, with a more international slant, the core values of the company had remained remarkably intact.
Plenty of vicissitudes cropped up over the years, though.
There was always the problem of the weather. Crosby's first small theater worked well under clear skies. Blankets were provided against chilly nights, and charcoal braziers provided the illusion of warmth. Ushers stayed snug under Alice Parrott's beautifully woven
jorongos
, while the audience sat in relative comfort either in the so-called "boxes"-the first few rows of string chairs-or on benches to the rear. We brought cushions, just as at Bayreuth.
But when it rained, and the rains came heavy that first year, things changed. With no cover for the audience or the pit, everything stopped for a while or for good. A house rule: If the
game had to be called before the end of Act One, there'd be a free replay later. Otherwise the wet audience had no choice but to head for home and a dry martini.
The construction of a mezzanine offered some protection from the watery, windy elements, but not from the element that destroyed the theater in 1967. It was July 27, and we'd
enjoyed last night's American premiere of Hindemith's dark fable,
Cardillac
, with
John Reardon as the perverse Parisian goldsmith. Then KHFM brought the news to many aghast breakfast tables: The opera theater had burned to the ground.
When John Crosby got fired up by a project, his shyness dropped from him like a cloak. Within hours he was making plans for a new theater and for transforming Santa Fe High's Sweeney Gym into Sweeney Opera House where, scarcely missing a beat, the shows went on with improvised everything-costumes, lights, sets, the works. If there were ever a triumph of Crosby and his company's will and the community's generous spirit, this was it.
Just as astonishingly, a new theater sprang from the ground in less than a year with another
Butterfly
opening the 1968 season. Now Rouben Ter-Arutunian's eye-dazzling set replaced the splendid simplicity of the 1957 staging. As in '57, Driscoll and Sarfaty sang together, this time in the American premiere of Henze's
The Bassarids
. Reardon joined them. Production funds had run short, so Stravinsky's
Perséphone
appeared in a concert version, though on a double bill with Schoenberg's challenging
Die Jakobsleiter
, brilliantly staged by Neil Peter Jampolis and starring Donald Gramm, with Baustian
in the pit.
Rosenkavalier
lacked much in the way of a set, but who cared with Helen Vanni singing the Marschallin. In keeping with the SFO's growing reputation for innovative repertory, five of the eight operas produced that season were composed in the 20th century.
Fast-forward 30 years to 1998. The second theater had offered more weather protection than its predecessor, but audiences and even the orchestra still got wet. Crosby had had enough,
so after years of planning and raising the $20.5 million for the new building, the third and present opera house opened-with
Butterfly
, of course, and with Crosby in the pit, as usual. It's a stunning, soaring place, completely roofed over but open at the sides to permit the feel of openness that is entirely characteristic of Santa Fe. Named The Crosby Theatre after the founder's sudden death in 2002, the building honors Crosby's achievement rather as St. Paul's Cathedral honors its architect, Christopher Wren, with the epitaph: "If you would see his monument, look around."
Nonetheless, Crosby had plenty of detractors. One regular opera-goer who's passionate and in the know commented recently, "The best thing that's happened to the opera is John Crosby's death." The iron grip that the founder kept on the company had finally been relaxed. Another leading professional musician compared Crosby to Charles
Wadsworth, the first artistic director of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center: "They're both mediocre musicians, but they're both amazing visionaries." Crosby's work in the pit often lacked luster, frankly. Baustian tells of a time when he and Crosby were going over a score together. Baustian called Crosby's attention to a peculiarly placed note: "John, why do you think that note is there?"
"Well, probably the tonal sequence requires it to be there."
"John, look at the word."
Singers who worked with Crosby in the early days don't necessarily talk about his musicianship, though. They talk about opportunity and spirit and tenacity. The mezzo Jean Kraft loved being Herodias in several
Salome
s, but she valued most the chance to sing several
sharply different roles, serious and comic, in a single season. Sarfaty feels the same way, emphasizing the way artists, in what was at first largely a repertory company, could grow and develop in successive roles. Vanni concurs, starting out as Octavian in
Rosenkavalier
and then being his Marie Thérèse, all the while feeling tremendous support from Crosby and the company.
Since Crosby's departure, there've been plenty of changes. Production Director Paul Horpedahl, with a production staff of nearly 200, says that each season the bar gets higher, that the SFO is a new place since Richard Gaddes succeeded Crosby as general director in 2000. Tom Morris has some facts and figures: With a $15 million
annual budget and some 600 personnel at peak season, the SFO's economic impact now comes to $183 million. David Holloway, in his second year as director of the apprentice artist program, is shifting its focus from voice training to developing the whole artist.
On the subject of change, Marc Neikrug, artistic director for the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, commented that the company has "moved from an absolute monarchy to a more generous spirit." That spirit would emanate from Gaddes, whose experience with the SFO is profound, beginning in 1969 as artistic administrator,
leaving the
company in 1976 to found the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, returning permanently in the mid-90s to serve as Crosby's right-hand man.
Their personalities could hardly have been more different (and there are rumors of epic blow-ups). Gaddes is open, witty and accessible, in contrast with Crosby, well-known in his later years for ponderous glumness. Renting the theater for performances by Lyle Lovett or Al Green? For Gaddes, that's a no-brainer, a community outreach decision designed to counter the aloof hilltop image that many hold of the SFO. Outreach projects are everywhere: free apprentice singer concerts at the Cathedral, light opera and cabaret at El Museo Cultural, artist exchange programs with the Chamber Music Festival, work with local public schools, free pre-opera talks and plenty more.
Gaddes and his gifted music director, Alan Gilbert, are clearly about putting a fresh face on the SFO, although Gilbert comments, rather ambiguously, "I'm thinking about John Crosby all the time." In a sense, so is Gaddes when he remarks, "There's always a sense of the potential here. The SFO has always been about possibilities."
This season's possibilities follow a now-familiar five-opera
repertory pattern: a tried-and-true opener (
Carmen
), a Mozart something (
Die Zauberflöte
),
Strauss (
Salome
), a wild card (Massenet's
Cendrillon
), and a recent piece,
premiere or commission (Adès'
The Tempest
). Gaddes guarantees that first, this formula is subject to change and, second, there's little that's formulaic about the '06 season. Swedish mezzo Anne Sophie von Otter is Carmen, with Gilbert conducting. French soprano Natalie Dessay sings Mozart's Pamina in a
production by Tim Albery.
Cendrillon
, rumored to be the season's sleeper, is directed by France's Laurent Pelly of recent
La Belle Hélène
fame.
Salome
features the English soprano, Janice Watson, in her first
performance
of the role, and Gilbert is again in the pit for the American
premiere of the Adès piece, hugely acclaimed at its Covent Garden opening two
years ago.
Do we detect a certain international flavor here? That's just another of the changes Gaddes has wrought,
along with greater financial stability. The endowment, $9.7 million in 2000, now stands at $50 million, according to the general director. Opera access is no longer a scary affair. A master-plan for significant enlargement of the SFO campus will be put into play over the next few years. With Gaddes in charge, the company at age 50 is more vital than ever. For all the fond remembrances of times past, there's no room for nostalgic musings like those above, just for new beginnings, every single season for at least another 50. And there's nothing paradoxical about that.
Santa Fe Reporter