Deepen your experience and understanding of opera with Opera Basics — a series of five free, informative talks that will introduce you to the building blocks of opera while previewing the five productions of the Santa Fe Opera’s 2026 Season: Puccini’s Madama Butterfly, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Handel’s Rodelinda, and the American premiere of Tobias Picker’s Lili Elbe.

• Learn about the stories, the characters, the music, and the text
• Gain insight into how to listen to the singers and the orchestra
• Learn about the composers, the librettists, and the genesis of the operas
• Get tips on how to understand the sets, props, costumes, and the directors’ concepts

In Santa Fe: Five Tuesday Evenings from 6 – 7:30 pm
Muñoz Waxman Gallery at the Center for Contemporary Arts
1050 Old Pecos Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87505

In Placitas: Five Saturday Afternoons from 2 – 3:30 pm
Las Placitas Presbyterian Church
7 Paseo de San Antonio Rd., Placitas, NM
In partnership with the Placitas Artist Series

Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini with Oliver Prezant
Santa Fe: Tuesday, April 7, from 6 – 7:30 pm
Placitas: Saturday, April 11, from 2 – 3:30 pm

The Magic Flute by W. A. Mozart with Oliver Prezant
Santa Fe: Tuesday, April 21, from 6 – 7:30 pm
Placitas: Saturday, April 25, from 2 – 3:30 pm

Eugene Onegin by Pyotr llyich Tchaikovsky with Oliver Prezant
Santa Fe: Tuesday, May 5, from 6 – 7:30 pm
Placitas: Saturday, May 2, from 2 – 3:30 pm

Rodelinda by George Frideric Handel with Kevin Vigneau
Santa Fe: Tuesday, May 19, from 6 – 7:30 pm
Placitas: Saturday, May 23, from 2 – 3:30 pm

Lili Elbe by Tobias Picker with Alexis Corbin
Santa Fe: Tuesday, June 2, from 6 – 7:30 pm
Placitas: Saturday, June 6, from 2 – 3:30 pm

FREE with a reservation! Seating is first come, first served.

For more information, please contact Koppany Pusztai at kpusztai@santafeopera.org.

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Oliver Prezant
Conductor and arts educator Oliver Prezant has presented lectures and education programs for organizations including the Santa Fe Opera, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Opera Southwest, Chamber Music Albuquerque and the National Hispanic Cultural Center, as well as programs exploring the relationship between music and visual art for the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, the New Mexico Museum of Art and the Albuquerque Museum. He is currently the Executive and Artistic Director of Opus OP Arts and Education Projects, which provides music and arts programs for listeners, musicians and teachers.

Alexis Corbin
Alexis Corbin is the Afternoon Host and Executive Director of Classical 95.5 KHFM in Albuquerque, where she brings both curatorial vision and an engaging on-air presence to one of the region’s leading classical music stations. A native of Portland, Oregon, she performs regularly with Opera Southwest and the Santa Fe Symphony, and has collaborated with the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players, the Bill Evans Dance Company and Kawambe-Omowale African Drum and Dance Theater. She has also performed with steel pan artists Liam Teague and Len “Boogsie” Sharpe. She previously served as founding Program Director of New Mexico’s first El Sistema program and has supported arts education through her work with the Public Academy for the Performing Arts.

Kevin Vigneau
Kevin Vigneau is Professor Emeritus at the University of New Mexico and principal oboe of the New Mexico Philharmonic. He has performed with the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra and served as principal oboe of the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra in South Africa and the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa in Portugal. He holds degrees from the Yale School of Music and Boston University, where he studied with Ronald Roseman, Laurence Thorstenberg and Ralph Romberg. His lifelong connection to opera began as a boy singing with the Opera Company of Boston under Sarah Caldwell. At UNM, he taught courses in music history including Music of the Baroque and Music in Vienna 1860–1920, and he has recorded as a soloist for the EMI, Centaur and Summit labels.

Principal Education Sponsor

Sponsored by

Thank you to our hosts, Center for Contemporary Arts and the Las Placitas Presbyterian Church