Hitting Right Notes on a Trip to Santa Fe Opera

This plateau city has been called America’s Salzburg for good reason. A good half of summer visitors will tell you: “It’s music that brings me here.”

I love music, but during the year, getting to the hall in time often means a mad rush from work or other engagements. An extended summer weekend musical escape, just listening to great performances, with the option of some leisurely touring or shopping, goes a long way to restore my enjoyment of all that is pleasurable in music.

Most summers, Santa Fe offers the most attractive musical destination I can think of.

Of course there are other reasons to visit. Santa Fe is a popular summer vacationland, filled with art galleries, hiking, tennis, horseback riding, and, at times, too many tourists.

But what sets Santa Fe apart from other destinations with similar attractions is its gathering of quality musical presentations here at the base of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Applause From Critics

Each July and August the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and the Santa Fe Opera burst into full bloom. Santa Fe is at its best when the cellos, violins and divas come rolling in.

Both the opera and the festival could stand on their own in any location. Critics have applauded both for adventuresome programming, premier performers, and providing real discoveries for the audience.

And Santa Fe’s spectacular landscape, clean, dry air, wide skies, dramatic lighting, vast spaces and historic ambiance offer an artistic atmosphere for music listening of a special, rarefied kind.

As a music lover, you’ll be in congenial company. More than half of the audiences come from out of town, and they talk knowledgeably about harmony and counterpoint, as well as about Indian jewelry and the spectacular clouds.

I find a marvelous pleasure in ambling to a concert from a nearby bed and breakfast. Enjoying good music while on vacation enhances my appreciation of a performance, both during the visit, and later, when a similar passage heard back in the city evokes the memory of distant lightning during an outdoor opera, or of cool introspection listening to chamber music in historic St. Francis hall.

Favorite Places

My two favorite places in Santa Fe are the opera’s spectacular outdoor theater and the Chamber Music Festival’s mission-like concert hall. Both are worth a visit just to look at, even if you are not a full-fledged music nut.

A good way to begin a visit is with a daytime sojourn in the Museum of Fine Arts, right off the Plaza on West Palace Avenue and within walking distance of most downtown hotels.

Get sidetracked in its exhibits of Southwest painters, or head right toward the west end of the museum where, guided by the sounds of Mozart weaving their way through the galleries, you’ll find one of the city’s architectural splendors, St. Francis Auditorium. Named for the city’s patron saint, the hall is the home of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.

You may find a rehearsal going on in this serene, chapel-like setting, because they run throughout the day. Times are subject to change, so check the schedule outside the entrance.

Although there’s an admission charge to the museum galleries, visitors often don’t realize that the rehearsals are free and open to the public. Taking in a rehearsal is a much-loved ritual for business people on lunch breaks, artists, students, and mothers with children.

The newly renovated benches in the vaulting hall provide sanctuary from the noon sun, or a rest for tired feet if you’ve been out shopping and walking. On any given day you’ll find festival regulars such as pianist Ursula Oppens, cellist Nathaniel Rosen or violinist Ani Kavafian, all talking and laughing as they make music together, refining a performance.

A Page From History

I like the dignity and simplicity of the auditorium. A page out of Santa Fe’s rich history, the hall until recently was the largest public assembly place in the city, hosting gubernatorial inaugurations as well as concerts. It was built to resemble a Franciscan mission but, contrary to popular belief, was never a church. It was built as part of the museum, an anchor of Santa Fe’s art history that opened in 1917.

Take time to look at the murals on the whitewashed walls. Designed by Donald Beauregard and executed after his death by Santa Fe artists Carlos Vierra and Kenneth M. Chapman, the murals depict St. Francis of Assisi’s influence upon art and music.

Gaze at the ceiling, which has some of the most beautiful vigas in town--Spanish-type ceiling supports made of horizontally placed logs, most often aspen--adorned with intricately carved corbels. The hall’s acoustics are also the best in town.

The seven-week chamber music festival, July 6 through Aug. 18, offers Sunday, Monday and Thursday evening concerts. This year the festival highlights Beethoven piano trios and string quartets, some rarely heard Shostakovich works and a tribute to Lizst on the 100th year of his death.

If you want to learn more about chamber music and have fun doing it, attend the Friday noon series, “Musical Conversations,” which spotlight a festival performer and topics ranging from Lizst’s life to percussion and oboes. If you have children along, don’t miss the youth concerts Saturdays at 10:15 a.m.

American Focus

Another reason I like the festival is its American focus. Offered this year are works by Henry Cowell, Morton Subotnick and John Adams. This year the composer-in-residence, Stephen Paulus, will premiere his “Letters From Colette,” a chamber work to be sung by soprano Evelyn Lear Aug. 3 and 4.

Chamber music sometimes conjures up images of stuffy drawing rooms but that is hardly the case in Santa Fe. The Sunday/Monday concerts are a tad more formal in tone and audience dress than the rest of the week, but the festival’s relaxed approach shows in some of the special events planned this season.

There’ll be an adventuresome concert of crossover music--a melding of jazz, chamber music and bluegrass--with a guest appearance by Nashville star Mark O’Connor planned for Santa Fe’s Sweeney Center on Aug. 6; a chamber music concert at the San Juan Indian Pueblo just outside Espanola (a 45-minute drive north of Santa Fe) on Aug. 8; a concert at Santa Fe Downs Race Track, where you could take in a little horse racing with a little listening, on Aug. 10.

Most evenings belong to the opera. The Santa Fe Opera, which opens this week and closes Aug. 23, is housed in its 1,765-seat amphitheater with a 45-foot proscenium opening. It’s a monument to the marriage of art and landscape.

The views, often punctuated with lightning in the distant Jemez Mountains, are sublime. You have a feeling less of being at “the opera” than of taking part in what artist Georgia O’Keeffe called New Mexico’s sense of timelessness, the “Far Away.”

Bold Programming

The opera has earned an international reputation for its performances and, though at times controversial, bold programming and productions. The American premiere of Hans Werner Henze’s “The English Cat,” the world premiere of John Eaton’s “The Tempest” and other off-the-beaten-track works are what the Santa Fe Opera does best.

The opera celebrates its 30th anniversary this season under founding director John Crosby with productions of Strauss’ “Die Fledermaus,” Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” Monteverdi’s “L’Incoronazione Di Poppes,” Strauss’ “Die Agyptische Helena”--the first full performance in this country since its premiere at the Metropolitan Opera in 1928--and the American premiere of Finnish composer Aulis Sallinen’s “The King Goes Forth to France.”

In salute to the opera’s anniversary, many art organizations are sponsoring exhibits, such as the Museum of Fine Arts “The Operatic Muse,” a show of costumes and set designs from the collection of Robert L. Tobin. The opera produced all of Igor Stravinsky’s operatic works over the years, and Stravinsky attended many an opera in Santa Fe, so the company’s anniversary is fittingly marked by an exhibit of watercolors and gouaches by the late composer’s wife, Vera Stravinsky, on view at the downtown office of the Bank of Santa Fe.

The program begins when the sun sets but the drama starts way before the gleams of dusk dissipate. Try to leave Santa Fe no later than 7:30 to avoid traffic jams, leaving plenty of time to park, take in the spectacular views and people-watch.

Warm Dress Advised

Dress ranges from formal to absurd, so feel free to be zany, practical and at home. It is an open-air theater, and high-altitude New Mexico evenings get chilly, so be sure to take a heavy sweater, shawl or jacket; some people take blankets.

Rain is occasionally a problem but only in a limited number of seats. A favorite tale is the year the opera presented “Count Ory,” with a second act calling for a rainstorm, and the weather stood in for the special effects, clearing up in time for the third act.

Even if you have only a weekend free, you can still have a music-packed visit. Here’s one way: If you arrive on a Thursday evening you’ll get a good start at the Chamber Music’s Friday noon Musical Conversation. That gives you the rest of the day to see the museums, with the top choices being the Folk Art and Wheelwright on a shared hilltop south of the center of town.

Or you could attend a Saturday “Beethoven Plus!” concert, which leaves you the rest of the day to shop or gallery-hop, time to enjoy dinner, and then out to the opera for the evening.

The opera offers performances Friday and Saturday nights through the season, with the other evenings during the week varying, so check the schedule. You can reserve Sunday for departure, last-minute gifts and maybe a stroll in the hills. Don’t forget to pace yourself, because at 7,000 feet the air is as rarefied as the music.

For more information: Santa Fe Opera, P.O. Box 2408, Santa Fe, N.M. 87504-2408, phone (800) 552-0070, ext. 267. Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, P.O. Box 853, Santa Fe, N.M. 87504-0853, phone (505) 983-1890.

For other events, lodging and transportation: Santa Fe Chamber of Commerce, 200 W. Marcy St., Santa Fe, N.M. 87501, phone (505) 983-7317.

Opera tickets Monday through Thursday are $10-$45, Friday and Saturday $15-$50.