Old World meets New World: Santa Fe Opera season features classic and modern works

New productions of “Don Giovanni,” “La traviata” and “Der Rosenkavalier,” and a revival of “The Elixir of Love,” cap the 2024 Santa Fe Opera season spiced by a world premiere.

“Each of these operas represents the best opera by each of these composers,” SFO executive director Robert Meya said.

The season also features Santa Fe’s 19th world premier with “The Righteous” by American composer Gregory Spears and Pulitzer Prize-winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith.

Santa Fe commissioned “The Righteous” five years ago, Meya said. The opera opens on July 13.

“Spears is one of the most talented American composers today,” Meya said. “Gregory’s music is very approachable; it’s very melodic.”

The show marks the composer’s eighth opera. Spears is best-known for the 2016 opera “The Fellow Travelers,” based on the book by the same name, about the McCarthy era and the persecution of gays in the CIA.

Spears based “The Righteous” on the biblical story of King David.

“It basically tells the story of this governor of a state in the Southwest,” Meya said.

The governor dies and his preacher son-in-law assumes the leadership after building his own church.

“He chooses power and ambition at the expense of his faith,” Meya said. But “it’s not going to hit you over the head with a political perspective,” he added.

The libretto spans three presidencies, the AIDS crisis and the recession.

The season will open with “La traviata” on June 28, with Mozart’s masterpiece “Don Giovanni” on June 29.

Giuseppe Verdi’s “La traviata” is set in 1939 by the Vienna-based director Louisa Muller in her company debut.

“She’s one of the most sought-after stage directors,” Meya said. “She directed some of our apprentice scenes — that’s how we have gotten to know her.”

The opera is set in Paris on the eve of World War II. Acclaimed Armenian soprano Mané Galoyan sings the role of Violetta. Uzbeki tenor Bekhzod Davronov is Alfredo.

“The whole piece is built on a turntable, so it has constant choreography,” Meya said.

“Don Giovanni” follows in a new interpretation by director Stephen Barlow following his production of Gioachino Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville.” Bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green debuts as the lecherous nobleman; recent SFO apprentice singer Teresa Perrotta sings Donna Anna. The production draws parallels between the notorious seducer and the character in Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” who chases pleasure and eternal youth.

The opera is set in Victorian London during the 1880s.

While most opera fans think of “Don Giovanni” as tragic, its composer thought differently, Meya said.

“Mozart referred to it as a drama with some humorous elements. It’s a cautionary tale infused with humor.”

Richard Strauss’ romantic comedy “Der Rosenkavalier” opens on July 20 in a nod to the legacy of SFO founder John Crosby.

“He did the American premieres of six operas by Strauss,” Meya said. “It’s a wonderful legacy for us. It has a lot of romantic music in it. We haven’t done it since 1992.”

Most productions use the orchestra’s 58 musicians; “Der Rosenkavalier” requires about 80. Santa Fe is co-producing the piece with the Garsington Opera (near London) and the Irish National Opera.

Karina Canellakis, chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, will make her SFO debut. Four former apprentice singers: Rachel Willis-Sørensen (Marshallin), Paula Murrihy (Octavian), Zachary Nelson (Faninal) and Megan Marino (Annina) head the ensemble cast.

“All of the reviews when it premiered in London said it was the most beautiful ‘Rosenkavalier’ they had ever seen,” Meya said.

Gaetano Donizetti’s comic “The Elixir of Love” opens July 27 in a revival from 2009.

“It’s a very accessible crowd-pleaser,” Meya said.

The show is set in post-World War II Italy, complete with a Vespa and an American jeep . Tenor Jonah Hoskins will sing the part of Nemorino, a role he recently debuted at the Metropolitan Opera to critical acclaim. Hoskins is a former SFO apprentice singer.

Crosby founded the apprentice program, the first of its kind in the U.S., in 1957. The apprentice scenes are slated for Aug. 11 and 18.

“We are the launch pad for opera singers of the future,” Meya said.

The 67th festival season showcases 43 debuting artists, 55 returning artists and more than 120 young singers and technicians from the opera’s apprentice programs.

Visitor experiences include tailgating, tours, preview dinners, prelude talks and more.

See santafeopera.org.