Michael Wade Simpson is editor of culturevulture.net. He writes about the performing arts for the Santa Fe New Mexican and New Mexico Magazine. He has an MFA in dance from Smith College, where he was a teaching fellow. He began his professional life as an advertising copywriter but left the business world to become a modern dancer in New York. He studied classical piano and sang in ensembles at the University of Southern California where he graduated with a BA in journalism. He was a member of the San Francisco Gay Men's chorus.
There was a nod to John Adams in the score, but also a kind of edgy Americana, complete with powerful writing for male chorus, and an attempt to communicate the flavor of rural North Carolina, not far from where Higdon grew up.
In director Daniel Slater’s production at Santa Fe Opera this summer, Freud is God, and a biblical saga of lust, incest and murder is presented through a Viennese, turn-of-the-century lens.
