Santa Fe Opera’s Don Giovanni. Runs through August 26. Tickets at santafeopera.org or call 505-986-5900.
Warm greetings from Santa Fe, New Mexico. One of the joys of summer music travels is the opportunity to hear great opera at Santa Fe, located in northern New Mexico, a little more than an hour’s drive north of Albuquerque. I’ve been coming here for some twenty years now. What was an annual visit in the first ten years dwindled a bit in recent seasons, primarily due to scheduling conflicts. But I decided I couldn’t miss this year, given it’s SFO’s 60th anniversary, plus there are five Canadian artists here this season. I’ve had such incredible memories of this place. The Santa Fe Opera, under its late founder and conductor John Crosby, had earned a well-deserved reputation as the premiere summer opera festival in North America. Crosby was a Strauss devotee, exactly my cup of tea! Some of their productions have also been imported by the Canadian Opera Company, among them Venus and Adonis by Henze and the recent Maometto II. Toronto opera lovers can look forward to a SFO Arabella in the not too distant future.
Quite apart from the fabulous music, northern New Mexico is Georgia O’Keeffe country, with it’s magical skies of a constantly changing interplay of light and shadow. No wonder this is a favourite spot for visual artists. The colour and light are hard to explain – one just has to experience it, preferably at the Ghost Ranch, Georgia O’Keeffe’s place near Abiquiu. Walking the grounds where O’Keeffe painted, looking at the light through the clouds and mountains – it’s nothing short of magical. I fully intend to make another visit to the Ghost Ranch this summer. Travelling to Santa Fe is somewhat complicated as there’s no direct flight to Albuquerque. Ove the years, I’ve connected through many places – Chicago, Denver, St. Louis, Dallas, Atlanta, Houston, and San Francisco, not the most convenient way of travelling! Then at ABQ it’s best to drive to Santa Fe. The opera house is yet another 30 minutes north in Tesuque, so you really need a car. According to opera lore, this site was specially chosen by John Crosby for its excellent acoustics, after testing many different spots in the area. I totally believe it. I admit the press department always gives me great seats, but I do believe the acoustics are fine anywhere in the house. You could hear a pin drop. Amazing!
The opera on my first night here was Don Giovanni, with an excellent cast led by Canadian baritone Daniel Okulitch in the title role. A native of Vancouver BC, Okulitch has sung in many opera houses but for some reason, not the Canadian Opera Company. In fact, I don’t know if he has ever sung in Toronto. The few times I’ve seen him live was when I travelled to Montreal, Vancouver or the States. He was very memorable in the opera The Fly by Howard Shore. More recently he made a splash in Teatro Real in Madrid in Brokeback Mountain. Also, I mustn’t forget his appearance in the very funny Mulroney, the Opera, composed by Canadian Alexina Louie. Well, Don Giovanni is a great role for him. His lyric baritone has just the right balance of brilliance and robustness to do it justice. It’s sufficiently different in timbre from the Leporello of Kyle Ketelson to make it interesting. A great actor, Okulitch is a very attractive Don and one can totally believe why women would fall for him. And he’s not shy about taking off his clothes either! There was a scene with him in a bathtub, tastefully of course! His Serenade, sung in mezza voce, was gorgeous; the Champagne Aria had the requisite lightness. The final high A, when he was dragged to hell (by the excellent Commendatore of Soloman Howard), was more screamed than sung, but that’s okay. I really think the COC would do well to engage Okulitch in the future.
Don Giovanni’s servant, Leporello, was American bass-baritone Kyle Ketelson, who was also in the COC version. Well, he’s even better here in Santa Fe, probably because the production by Ron Daniels is more congenial than the COC production from Aix-en-Provence. Catalogue Aria deliciously sung, and he has great chemistry with Don Giovanni. His acting was superb, altogether one of the best Leporellos I’ve seen. Leah Crocetto is no stranger to SFO or the COC, having sung Anna in Maometto here and in Toronto. She’s a terrific Donna Anna, with extra, interpolated high notes (!) thrown in for good measure in “Or sai chi l’onore.” Her “Non mir dir” was also lovely. Only in the Act 2 sextet was she attacking the high notes a bit too forcefully and the coloratura not ideally clean. Keri Alkema, another singer familiar to COC audiences, was an excellent Elvira, with incredible breath control in “Mi tradi.” Zerlina was Rhian Lois, a voice new to me. A soubrette with a bright if slightly brittle sound, she’s an engaging Zerlina. Her Masetto was Jarrett Ott, another really terrific young baritone, and among the best Masettos I’ve seen. In fact, the four men (DG, Leporello, Ottavio, and Masetto) were uniformly fine in voice and looks. Let’s face it, it’s not always easy to find a tall and handsome Ottavio. In this case, the relationship him and Anna is totally believable.
Conductor John Nelson gave a middle-of-the-road reading of the score, with generally well-judged tempi. Only in Non mi dir was the tempo a bit erratic, but that could have been his way to accommodate the singer. The production by Ron Daniels with sets by Riccardo Hernandez is lavish and darkly opulent, dominated by a shiny, black and gigantic head and upper torso of (probably) a female, which in the denouement turns into some sort of a skull, a rather hokey touch. But overall, it was an impressive production, as large scale and opulent as Santa Fe Opera gets. The audience loved it and gave all the soloists huge ovations, particularly Leporello. A grand start to my Santa Fe visit. Tomorrow is the Puccini horse opera – Can’t wait!
#LUDWIGVAN
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