'It was a huge risk': NMPBS documentary raises the curtain on the Santa Fe Opera's history

The crown jewel of New Mexico arts is finally getting a documentary.

Slated to screen first at Santa Fe’s Lensic Performing Arts Center on Thursday, Nov. 7, and on New Mexico PBS on Thursday, Nov. 14, “An American Vision: The Santa Fe Opera” is the first film documentary to focus on what has become one of the world’s most sought-after summer festivals.

It’s the story of a project that never should have worked — the building of an opera house in the middle of the high desert of New Mexico.

'It was a huge risk': NMPBS documentary raises the curtain on the Santa Fe Opera's history

Featuring never-before-seen archival materials and performance footage, the documentary film captures the opera’s remarkable history and explores the visionary efforts that have made it one of the world’s most sought-after summer festivals.

But that thought ignores the passion and drive of SFO founder John Crosby, who borrowed $200,000 from his parents as seed money.

Its first season opened in July 1957 with a performance of Giacomo Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly.”

“It was a huge challenge,” said executive producer Michael Kamins. “When they had opening night, (Crosby) said, ‘People were coming up the wrong roads waiting for blood.’ It was a huge risk.”

Crosby had spent time in New Mexico at Los Alamos Ranch School as a child.

“His doctors told him New Mexico would help his (breathing) problems,” said Tara Walch, NMPBS producer, director, editor and photographer. “They did vigorous outdoor stuff. He just fell in love with New Mexico.”

Crosby served in the U.S. Army for two years between 1944 and 1946, with time spent in Europe and some with the 18th Regimental Band handling piano, violin, trombone and double bass.

But at Yale University he studied composition with the composer Paul Hindemith and created arrangements for musical productions. He graduated with a degree in music in 1950.

Crosby spent a few months as an assistant arranger for Broadway musicals before returning to graduate studies at Columbia University between 1951 and 1955. During these years, he became an opera lover, regularly attending the Metropolitan Opera and working as a piano accompanist assistant.

In 1951, during a period of regular attendance at the Met as a standee, Crosby saw the Alfred Lunt production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Così fan tutte,” which greatly influenced him in developing a concept for the future Santa Fe Opera.

During the three years preceding Santa Fe’s first season in 1957, Crosby meticulously planned for its creation, helped and encouraged by Leopold Sachse, the former artistic director of the Hamburg State Opera, who also taught at Columbia.

Asked in a 1991 interview why he founded the company, Crosby responded: “Because of Rudolf Bing.” He went on to explain that Bing’s influential productions as general manager at the Met in the 1950s had caused him to regard opera “as a serious art form.”

By this time, Crosby’s parents had bought a second home on land located about three miles north of Santa Fe. Close to this location, the San Juan Ranch, a 199-acre guest ranch, became available and, sponsored by his father, Crosby would build the theater and buy the land.

“I started realizing how integral John Crosby was,” Walch said. “One of the revelations was finding taped interviews” in the opera archives.

Crosby came to Santa Fe regularly during the summers to pitch the idea of an outdoor opera on a hill.

“I think he fought for it because other people wanted to do it,” Walch added. “Crosby had broken ground while he was planning the first performance. It barely got finished.

“He was meticulous; he thought things through,” she continued. “He worked at Bishop’s Lodge, teaching children riding lessons and shoeing the horses” one summer before college.

Crosby also founded Santa Fe’s apprentice program, the first of its kind in the U.S. Committed to presenting new operas, he commissioned them.

“He wanted opera to be a living art form,” Walch said.

The appearance of the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky added professional cachet through “The Rake’s Progress.” Stravinsky came to Santa Fe each summer until 1963, during which time he was given “an unmatched musical pulpit” with performances of six operas ranging from “Oedipus rex” (1960) to “Le Rossignol” (1962 and 1963).

As co-producer, the Santa Fe Opera opened its archives to the filmmakers.

The collaboration germinated when NMPBS produced a seven-part series on the 2021 Santa Fe premiere of “The Lord of Cries,” Kamins said.

“That was really an eye-opener,” he explained. “We introduced each other to each other’s assets. It just opened the door up.”

“We already had a pretty good relationship with NMPBS,” said Robert Meya, SFO general director. “They’ve been really excited about the Santa Fe Opera, its legacy, its history.”

The project inspired the opera to digitize is archives through the Library of Congress, he added. Some of the information dates back from 50 to 60 years, including 8 mm home movies of John Crosby as a child in Westchester, New York, as well as audio recordings of the founder.

“We’ve never done anything like it,” Meya said. “It takes a partner like PBS who has the infrastructure.”

The film examines key moments in the opera’s history and features never-before-seen archival materials as well as interviews with leading creative figures including Pulitzer Prize-winning librettist David Henry Hwang, composer Huang Ruo, writer and critic Anne Midgette, renowned tenor and National Medal of Arts awardee George Shirley, opera director Peter Sellars, Santa Fe Opera music director Harry Bicket, general director Robert K. Meya and more.