Leadership
Robert K. Meya, General Director
Robert K. Meya has been General Director of the Santa Fe Opera since 2018. Prior to that appointment, he served as the company’s Director of External Affairs from 2012-2018. Robert first joined the summer festival staff as an intern in 1999, and 2026 marks his 16th season with the company.
During his tenure, Robert has led the Santa Fe Opera through a period of exceptional artistic and financial growth. He has raised more than $300 million, including $45 million for the renovation and expansion of the Crosby Theatre’s backstage; $32 million for the construction of new housing for the company’s world-renowned Apprentices; and a transformative $100 million endowment initiative, increasing the company’s endowment to over $165 million.
In 2022, the Santa Fe Opera received the “Festival of the Year” award at the International Opera Awards — the highest honor in the industry — and under his leadership the company has twice been nominated for Best World Premiere and for Sustainability, recognizing the company’s leadership in environmental stewardship.
Artistically, Robert has overseen five world premiere commissions by composers Poul Ruders, John Corigliano, Huang Ruo, Nico Muhly and Gregory Spears. His leadership has been distinguished by a focus on critically-acclaimed new productions and the expansion of the company’s historical repertory. He has introduced to Santa Fe audiences seminal works by Wagner, including Tristan und Isolde and Die Walküre, as well as the company premieres of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Dvořák’s Rusalka and Handel’s Rodelinda. He has also brought back important works not heard at the Santa Fe Opera in decades, among them Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman. Future seasons will feature a series of American premieres by composers such as Tobias Picker and Brett Dean.
Central to Robert’s strategic vision has been raising the international profile of the company by attracting talent of the highest caliber and collaborating with leading opera houses and festivals. Co-productions with the Bavarian State Opera, Irish National Opera, Garsington Opera, Scottish Opera/Edinburgh Festival, as well as major U.S. companies including the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Seattle Opera and Dallas Opera, have extended the company’s reach. Thanks to these partnerships, Santa Fe Opera productions have traveled to Japan and will appear at major festivals in Australia, Finland and beyond.
In addition to leading North America’s foremost summer opera festival — with an annual audience of 70,000, an operating budget of $30 million and over 700 company members, including a tenured orchestra, music faculty and guest artists — Robert and his team oversee one of the nation’s most comprehensive Apprenticeship programs, providing more than 130 singers and theater technicians with career-making opportunities each season.
As steward of the company’s 200-acre campus, which includes the iconic open-air Crosby Theatre and dozens of buildings and beautifully-landscaped grounds, Robert has championed sustainability and environmental innovation. His initiatives include extensive water reclamation and recycling, and the installation of four solar arrays generating over half a million kWh annually — offsetting more than 50% of the opera’s electricity use.
In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the Santa Fe Opera’s season, Robert led the company’s recovery, assembling a team of epidemiologists and public health experts to ensure a safe reopening. On July 10, 2021, the Santa Fe Opera became the first opera company in the nation to return to live performances in its own venue, presenting 30 performances and employing more than 500 staff members without a single postponement or cancellation. The 2021 Reopening Season exceeded ticket projections by over 100% and achieved a record $11.8 million in fundraising, the highest in company history.
That same year, Robert and his team pioneered new digital programming with significant investments in the company’s audio-visual infrastructure, allowing for nightly simulcasts and free Opera in the Park screenings in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. At the same time, the company launched its first-ever radio broadcasts, which over the past five years have reached listeners across New Mexico and in more than 55 countries via online streaming. New media agreements with the orchestra and artists have allowed the opera to expand its distribution, reaching and engaging new audiences throughout the region. And a new initiative, Opera on Screen, brings these films into communities throughout New Mexico free-of-charge.
A tireless advocate for education and access, Robert has expanded the company’s two dozen community engagement programs and spearheaded a multi-million-dollar effort to commission, develop and present new, contemporary-themed operas aimed at building audiences. Under his guidance, the company’s Opera for All Voices initiative has commissioned five operas, the newest of which is created entirely by Native American artists.
A native of Connecticut, Robert earned a BS from Georgetown University with a concentration in International Relations, Law and Organization and an MA in Arts Management from Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz School of Public Policy and Management. His earlier career included positions at New York City Opera, Boston Symphony Orchestra and San Francisco Opera. A lifelong devotee of classical music and a trained pianist, he lives in Santa Fe with his wife, soprano Amanda Echalaz, and their two children.
Harry Bicket, Music Director
Endowed by Wyncote Foundation, as recommended by Frederick R. Haas & Rafael Gomez
Internationally renowned as an opera and concert conductor of distinction, Harry Bicket is especially noted for his interpretation of Baroque and Classical repertory. In 2007, Bicket became Artistic Director of The English Concert, one of the UK’s finest period orchestras. In 2013, he was named Chief Conductor of the Santa Fe Opera, a post he inaugurated with a critically-acclaimed Fidelio in the 2014 season.
Highlights of his operatic career in the United States and Canada include acclaimed productions for Lyric Opera of Chicago, Santa Fe Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Canadian Opera Company, Atlanta Opera and The Metropolitan Opera. Bicket has also conducted staged opera at Minnesota Opera, New York City Opera, Glimmerglass Festival, Spoleto Festival and Los Angeles Opera. He has guest conducted with Cleveland Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (Cincinnati May Festival), Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Houston Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, NACO Ottawa, Indianapolis Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra and The New York Philharmonic.
Within Europe, he has conducted performances at the Liceu Barcelona, L’Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, Theater an der Wien, Glyndebourne Festival, Scottish Opera, Royal Danish Opera, Aldeburgh Festival, Edinburgh Festival, English National Opera, Welsh National Opera and Opera North. He has appeared with RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Oslo Philharmonic, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Rotterdams Philharmonisch, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, Bayerische Rundfunk, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Previous work outside Europe includes the Israel Philharmonic, Opera Australia, New Israeli Opera and his Japanese debut with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra and Ian Bostridge.
He made his Glyndebourne Festival debut in 1996 with Peter Sellars’ landmark production of Theodora and returned in 1999 and 2003. He made his debut with the Bayerische Staatsoper in 2000 (a new production of Rinaldo), and over the following seven years conducted many performances. In 2001, his first Barcelona production, Giulio Cesare, earned him the Opera Critics’ Prize for best conductor, and he has since returned for A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2005), Ariodante (2006), L’Arbore di Diana (2009) and Agrippina (2013). In 2003, his debut production for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (Handel’s Orlando) received an Olivier Award nomination for Best New Opera Production. In the same year, he conducted Lyric Opera of Chicago for the first time and has since returned regularly. In 2004, his first Metropolitan Opera production (an acclaimed new production of Rodelinda with Renée Fleming and David Daniels) was quickly followed by Giulio Cesare (2006-2007) and La clemenza di Tito (2008), and he is now a regular guest.
Recent highlights with The English Concert include UK and international touring within Europe, United States (most recently Ariodante featuring Joyce DiDonato, including Carnegie Hall) and the Far East; regular Wigmore Hall and Barbican projects; and BBC Proms. Recordings to date with The English Concert include releases for Virgin Classics, Chandos, and Harmonia Mundi featuring Elizabeth Watts, David Daniels, Lucy Crowe, Sarah Connolly, and Rosemary Joshua.
Bicket’s discography also includes five recordings with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, including a collection of Handel opera arias with Renée Fleming (Decca) and Ian Bostridge (EMI), as well as selections from Handel’s Theodora, Serse and the cantata La Lucrezia with Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (Avie), which was nominated for a Grammy Award. His Gramophone Award-nominated CDs also include Sento Amor with David Daniels featuring arias by Gluck, Handel and Mozart (Virgin Veritas) and Il tenero momento with Susan Graham featuring arias by Mozart and Gluck (Erato).
Born in Liverpool, he studied at the Royal College of Music and Oxford University and is an accomplished harpsichordist.
