"While most US opera companies struggle in a post-pandemic world, Santa Fe Opera, the country’s leading summertime opera destination, projects an enviable sense of normality with a well balanced, five-opera season."
—George Loomis, Financial Times
"I have been coming to the 'Land of Enchantment' aka Santa Fe, since 1998. The artistic standards have always been very high, not to mention the bonus of enjoying the incredible mountain vista surrounding the opera house."
—Joseph So, Ludwig Van Toronto
“Named one of OperaWire’s rising stars in 2019, Hawkins makes her SFO debut this summer in Tosca. Her opening night performance was riveting throughout, but her Act 2 aria “Vissi d’arte” ... was a showstopper.”
—Julia Goldberg, Santa Fe Reporter
"Soprano Leah Hawkins is a magnificent Tosca, leaning into the character’s strength and bearing and giving full voice to her passions. She is well matched by tenor Joshua Guerrero as Cavaradossi, whose purity of tone and surety in the higher registers makes for thrilling listening."
—Molly Steinback, Taos News
"As the title character in Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman, Brownlee ... projected agony and careworn bitterness throughout the theater ... Brownlee’s enunciation was clear, his voice booming and blending well with the soprano Elza van den Heever’s mighty and ardent Senta."
—Joshua Barone, The New York Times
“Nicholas Brownlee’s Dutchman produces a big, glorious trombone of a sound, but he also scales it down sensitively. Elza van den Heever personifies Senta’s passion as well as naïveté in a luminous soprano. Morris Robinson is aptly dense-toned as Senta’s money-grubbing father Daland.”
—Scott Cantrell, Dallas Morning News
“Under Bicket’s inspired leadership, the large orchestra regaled us with profoundly expressive results, one of the finest accomplishments from this polished band in recent memory. This was an exceptional reading by any measure.”
—James Sohre, Opera Today
“Conductor Harry Bicket doesn’t just rise to the occasion of Debussy’s groundbreaking operatic score, he also meets Jones’ vision of a timeless — sometimes futuristic, sometimes medieval — setting.”
—Julia Goldberg, Santa Fe Reporter
"Pérez has found in the title role a part that rewards the richness of her sound. David Pountney’s elegant production, which treated the Little Mermaid-like story as the metaphor it always has been, has her rarely leaving the stage, crossing paths with the likes of Raehann Bryce-Davis’s playfully vicious Ježibaba and Mary Elizabeth Williams’s ferociously alluring foreign princess."
—Joshua Barone, The New York Times
"Conducted with both grace and romantic fervor by Lidiya Yankovskaya, the production marked Ailyn Pérez's commanding debut in the title role. Pérez ... sang and acted heroically, her darkly beautiful soprano voice and refulgent high notes bringing the character vividly to life."
—Lisa Hirsch, San Francisco Classical Voice
"Muhly ... preserves the crisp, clean lines of Monteverdi’s score while filling in all manner of instrumental filigree: delicate arpeggios in the harp, buzzing tremolos in the strings, decorative flourishes in the winds ... he acts as a fluent interpreter, bringing his own antic grace to bear."
—Alex Ross, The New Yorker
“Muhly draws on a diverse palette of colours: shimmering glockenspiel and high string harmonics, sepulchral pedal tones, expanded woodwinds and harp as the continuo."
—Thomas May, Opera Now
Theater Image © Aimee Adamek; 2023 Season Production Photography © Curtis Brown Photography