Falstaff

Music by Giuseppe Verdi
Text by Arrigo Boito

Verdi amazed the musical world when he crowned a lifetime of operatic tragedies with this richly comic portrait of Sir John Falstaff, the earl of excess. The score features a flood of melodies, inexhaustible rhythms, and a quicksilver orchestral palette. Verdi’s librettist, Arrigo Boito, may have put it best when he said, “We got all the juice from that Shakespearean orange, without any of the seeds.”

Paolo Arrivabeni makes his American debut as conductor and Kevin Newbury is the stage director. Laurent Naouri and Anthony Michaels-Moore share the title role, with Naouri singing the first four performances and Michaels-Moore the remaining six. Franco Pomponi, a 1994 Santa Fe apprentice, sings Ford; British soprano Claire Rutter is Ford’s wife, Alice; and Italian soprano Laura Giordano is their daughter, Nannetta. Nancy Maultsby and Norman Reinhardt, both of whom performed in the 2007 SFO season, return as Mistress Quickly and Fenton, respectively.

Performance Dates:
June 27; July 2, 5, 11, 29; August 4, 11, 16, 19, 23

The Marriage of Figaro

Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Text by Lorenzo da Ponte

Figaro and Count Almaviva are locked in a manly test of strength to see which one of them will be the first to enjoy the pleasures of Susanna’s bridal boudoir. Well, that’s what they think, anyway. Susanna and the Countess know that the women are really the ones who are pulling the strings, ensuring a finale with multiple marriages and a properly chastened lord of the manor.

Kenneth Montgomery, who led the very successful productions of Cinderella in 2006 and Daphne in 2007, conducts. This new production is staged by acclaimed British director Jonathan Kent, whose most recent SFO credit is The Tempest in 2006. Italian bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni makes his company debut in the title role; the young English soprano Elizabeth Watts is Susanna. Mariusz Kwiecen, who played Don Giovanni in 2004, returns as Count Almaviva, with SFO apprentice alumna Susanna Phillips as the Countess. Isabel Leonard, a young American making her Metropolitan Opera debut this coming season, is Cherubino.

Performance Dates:
June 28; July 4, 9, 18, 28; August 2, 5, 9, 13, 18, 22

Billy Budd

Music by Benjamin Britten
Text by E. M. Forester and Eric Crozier

Five years after Peter Grimes, Benjamin Britten returned to sagas of the sea for Billy Budd, the tale of a seraphic young sailor’s fall from grace. Based on Herman Melville’s unpublished novel of the same name, Billy Budd is now recognized as one of the most dramatically powerful and thematically poignant operas of the 20th century.

The company’s newly appointed chief conductor, Edo de Waart, will lead the performances, collaborating with director Paul Curran, who staged Santa Fe’s memorable Peter Grimes in 2005 and La bohème in 2007. Teddy Tahu Rhodes makes his Santa Fe debut in the title role, with Peter Rose as the malignant John Claggart and William Burden as “Starry Vere,” the naval commander who must make life’s ultimate choice.

Performance Dates:
July 12, 16, 25, 31; August 6, 14, 21

Radamisto

Music by George Frideric Handel
Text by Nicolo Haym

Handel set a new standard for Italian opera with Radamisto, a gorgeous and rarely heard work that was originally commissioned to launch the Royal Academy of Music in London. This musico-military spectacular celebrates the redemptive powers of love and fidelity in marriage, through a story of interlocking attempts at adultery among the ruling families of ancient Iberia.

Radamisto will be conducted by Harry Bicket, who led Platée here in 2007, and staged by David Alden, who won the 2006 Olivier Award for Best New Opera Production for his Jenufa at the English National Opera. The famously challenging title role will be sung by countertenor David Daniels, one of the world’s great Handelians, in his Santa Fe debut. He is joined in the cast by soprano Laura Claycomb as Polissena, Luca Pisaroni as Tiridate, and soprano Heidi Stober as Tigrane.

Performance Dates:
July 19, 23; August 1, 7, 15, 20

Adriana Mater
American Premiere

Music by Kaija Saariaho
Text by Amin Maalouf

Adriana Mater reunites composer Kaija Saariaho, librettist Amin Maalouf, and director Peter Sellars, whose L’Amour de loin was such a success here in 2002. Their new work takes place in an unnamed country at war, and its themes—revenge, forgiveness, and redemption—touch the consciousness in profound ways. The New York Times said of its 2006 Paris premiere, “Saariaho has succeeded in forging a work on an emotional scale only occasionally heard in contemporary opera.”

Spanish conductor Ernest Martinez Izquierdo makes his American debut with this production. Mezzo-soprano Monica Groop, who made her Santa Fe debut as the Pilgrim in L’Amour de loin, appears in the title role. She is joined by soprano Pia Freund, who recently sang the title role in Saariaho’s La Passion de Simone in Vienna and tenor Joseph Kaiser, who is featured as Tamino in the new Kenneth Branagh film adaptation of The Magic Flute.

Performance Dates:
July 26, 30; August 8, 12