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David Alden's staging of Alcina mines the rich theatricality of one of Handel's best-loved operas with enchanting but also perplexing results. 

Mason Bates's much-hyped first opera, The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs, excited Santa Fe audiences despite its dramatic shortcomings.

Static blocking and an uneven cast can't kill a Lucia di Lammermoor with a star this bright.

Santa Fe Opera's colorful and beautifully sung The Golden Cockerel makes a case for more Rimsky-Korsakov opera in the repertoire.

Maestro Leo Hussain’s translucent rendition of the score made Capriccio the crowning glory of the Santa Fe Opera Season.  

Richard Jones's production of Puccini’s Western opera La fanciulla del West is well sung, but fails to tap in to the Wild West atmosphere of the surroundings.

In Ron Daniels' production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni at Santa Fe Opera, the specter of death and the possibility of judgment is always center stage. 

Samuel Barber's Vanessa, with a libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti, is rarely staged, but Santa Fe makes a tremendous case for the opera. 

Santa Fe Opera presented Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette in Stephen Lawless’ mid 19th-century staging, a co-production with Barcelona's Liceu. Before the overture, General Director Charles MacKay came onstage to announce that Stephen Costello was ill and would be replaced by Joshua Guerrero, a graduate of the Los Angeles Opera Young Artist Program.

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. 

Mozart himself might have pulled a few weeds from this early opera. Lovely voices and sprightly playing can't overcome an overgrown plot in Santa Fe. 

Quinn Kelsey's Rigoletto is commanding, emotional and complex. His bass-baritone has all the qualities you could ask for – darkness and light.

Alek Shrader was in control of his high cs and managed to play comedy while sending out glorious wafting notes of emotion and musicality.