Ode to the Opera

Opera Season Already? Santa Fe Looks to Annual Rite of Summer

By Emily Esterson , 1-25-06

	Architectural and musical beauty: Santa Fe Opera

On the first true wintry day in months, its hard to imagine that opera season is just around the corner. But we received our 2006 Santa Fe Opera winter publication yesterday, and just a few days ago 75 New Mexico kids showed up to audition for parts in the Magic Flute and Carmen.

According to the Opera's publication, Crescendo, ticket sales are already 40 percent ahead of last year. Opera ticket sales can often be a harbinger of the Santa Fe tourism season overall--since the opera attracts a worldwide audience, who then roam the galleries and restaurants from June through August.

Several years ago, the Opera offered first-timer tickets: a clever marketing scheme meant to get people like me to the opera. If you were a New Mexico resident but had never been to the Opera, tickets were half price. I ordered a season's worth and went to three different operas. During one memorable performance, a huge thunderstorm came up the valley and crashed with bravado over the heads of the audience. SInce they put the roof on the opera, bad weather isn't an issue, but the thunderous weather sure added to the atmosphere.

The opera doesn't just bring a bunch of cultured tourists to town. It's a whole mini-industry, employing hundreds of technicians and artists and designers during its rehearsal and performance season. In 2002, a Bureau of Business and Economic Research counted the impact of arts and culture organizations on the county's economy and found the one in four earned dollars in the city comes from the arts and culture industries. The industry had $1 billion in receipts, employed 12,567 workers (17.5% of total
employment in Santa Fe county), and paid $231.5 million in wages and salaries. There is a small core of Santa Feans who came to New Mexico to work on the opera and continue to live here, year round, despite the increasing amount of money it takes to live in Santa Fe. The opera has also given birth to technology businesses, like Santa Fe's Figaro Systems, which provides the translation boxes on the back of each opera chair. Figaro started in Santa Fe, used Sandia National Labs to help perfect its programs, and has installed its subtitling systems in the Royal Opera in London, Milan's La Scala, and the Ellie Caulkins Opera House in Denver, which was recently renovated.

Sadly season's program is, if anything, a bit unimaginative. You have to feel for the singers who must dread performing Carmen (yet again). The audience in Santa Fe has little taste for the avant garde and tends to be repeat visitors. Nonetheless, the Opera continues to shine as a world class, summer-in-Santa Fe tradition.

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