Opera Southwest an International Opera Awards finalist for 'Doña Clementina'

Opera Southwest has been named a finalist for an International Opera Award for its production of “Doña Clementina.”

The production is nominated in the Rediscovered Work category and is up against “L’uomo femina” (Opéra de Dijon), “Phèdre” (Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe), “Giants in the Earth” (South Dakota Symphony Orchestra), “Ifigenia in Aulide (Bayreuth Baroque), “Orlando generoso” (Musikfestspiele Potsdam), “Waldmeister” (Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz) and “Ifigenia in Tauride” (Innsbruck Festival of Early Music).

Tony Zancanella, executive director of Opera Southwest, said that the award helps highlight New Mexico as “a hotbed of opera activity.”

“An opera award like this just shines a light on the fact that what we’re doing here in Albuquerque, on an Albuquerque budget, stands up not only in the United States, but internationally,” Zancanella said.

He said he was especially happy that the production featured a predominantly local cast.

“We cast nationally, but this was a fairly New Mexican cast for us,” Zancanella said. “And I was really just happy to see that, too. There’s just a lot of involvement of New Mexican artists in this.”

This is the second time in the last decade that Opera Southwest has been nominated for the Rediscovered Work International Opera Award. In 2015, “Amleto,” Franco Faccio’s operatic version of “Hamlet,” was nominated.

Zancanella said it feels nice that the theater has managed to be nominated more than once and that they have “carved out kind of a reputation as a company for doing rare or lost work.”

“There are not a lot of American companies that have been nominated twice,” Zancanella said. “And, I don’t think very many, or any as small as Opera Southwest, have been nominated in this way.”

Zancanella said the Rediscovered Work category in the International Opera Awards includes rarely performed works or those that have not been performed in the last few decades. He said these awards help promote some of the best aspects of opera.

“It’s a truly international art form in the best way,” Zancanella said.

“Doña Clementina” was produced at Opera Southwest in April. Zancanella said he thinks it made it as a finalist because it had a solid cast, conductor, director and was a high-quality production.

He said that it is nice to be a finalist for rediscovered works because while they are not box office blockbusters, they are what the theater calls “critical darlings.”

“It’s also nice when you’re doing work like ‘Doña Clementina’ to be recognized by your peers in the industry,” Zancanella said.

The Santa Fe Opera is a finalist in the Sustainability category. The winners will be announced on Nov. 13 at a ceremony in Athens, Greece.