SANTA FE, N.M. — At Santa Fe Opera, the summer destination for Dallas-Fort Worth opera lovers, you're virtually guaranteed to run into people you know. In my first two nights this year, I've already seen seven Dallasites, plus friends from New York, St. Louis and Houston.
Another virtual guarantee each season during the long tenure of founding general director John Crosby (1926-2002) was an opera by Richard Strauss — even the less familiar ones. Since Crosby's 2000 retirement, Strauss has been more selectively represented, making more room for operas by, among others, Leos Janácek and Benjamin Britten. But Ariadne auf Naxos, one of Strauss' most popular, is back on the schedule this year.
It's an opera-within-an-opera. The prologue portrays backstage shenanigans between rival groups of performers scheduled for an evening presentation. The Composer and Music Master are prepared to present the opera Ariadne auf Naxos, with a soprano portraying the loved-and-left eponym and the tenor representing the god Bacchus, who arrives to rescue her from grief and reawaken love. A Dancing Master, a light entertainer named Zerbinetta and a group of commedia dell'arte characters are to provide diversion.
The serious musicians are horrified when the Major-Domo announces that the two acts are to be performed together. But in the "real" opera that follows that's exactly what happens, to effects alternately solemn and zany, with soaring love music at the end.
Stage director Tim Albery had the smart idea of doing the prologue in his own English translation, the opera in the original German. The prologue seems to transpire circa 1920, designer Tobias Hoheisel supplying a grubby servants' basement with multiple doors. The British accent affected by Major-Domo Kevin Burdette reinforces some Downton Abbey associations.
Ariadne's island cave is suggested by big abstract swirls, her bed by a gigantic split-open egg. Zerbinetta shows up here as a flapper in red and black lamé, her colleagues as vaudeville hoofers.
The prologue was sheer delight Wednesday night, the opera not so much. Soprano Amanda Majeski, a drama-queen Composer, delivers bold, forward vocalism, but also plenty of nuance. Rod Gilfry is the appropriately stuffy Music Master. Brenton Ryan's Dancing Master serves up a crisp lyric tenor. Even lesser roles get fine vocalism, notably Brent Michael Smith's Footman.
The opera has a mellifluous trio of nymphs: Meryl Dominguez (Najade), Samantha Gossard (Dryade) and Sarah Tucker (Echo). Jarrett Ott's Harlequin, with a sit-up-and-take notice baritone, heads up the comedians' group, joining Anthony Robin Schneider (Truffaldino), Matthew DiBattista (Scaramuccio) and Terrence Chin-Loy (Brighella).
Liv Redpath is a Zerbinetta less ditsy than usual, more sympathetically grounded, with lower-range warmth as well as all the stratospheric glitter you could want for the famous "Grossmächtige Prinzessin" aria. Alas, the ultimate success of the opera depends on the Ariadne, and while Amanda Echalaz has the notes and the power for the role, poetry — even true legato — is in short supply. Bruce Sledge delivers sinewy force for Bacchus' initial "Circe" cries, but also some sensitive quiet singing.
Conductor James Gaffigan, who's led the Dallas Symphony Orchestra several times, does a fine job of coordinating everything and shaping the orchestral contributions quite expressively. But, well, this is half a fine Ariadne.
Formerly classical music critic of The Dallas Morning News, Scott Cantrell continues covering the beat as a freelance writer. Classical music coverage at The News is supported in part by a grant from the Rubin Institute for Music Criticism, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. The News makes all editorial decisions.
Details
Repeats at 8 p.m. Aug, 10, 15 and 23 at the Crosby Theatre, Santa Fe, N.M. $37 to $310. 1-800-280-4654, santafeopera.org.
