A Night at the Opera

I am a big fan of opera. Near Los Alamos, New Mexico is the Santa Fe Opera, which is world class opera house. When I was young the opera was a genuine outdoor opera (if it rained you got wet) . Sadly that opera house burned down in the late ‘60’s. The replacement was also a genuine outdoor theater (whereas today's house is only vaguely out door). Sometimes my mom worried that she was dragging me to the opera, but it turns out that they only go to the opera when I drag them. The best opera I attended at Santa Fe was Mozart’s Magic Flute (summer 1971). But this has as much to do about nature as the opera itself (without nature I liked their Faust and Gianni Schicchi performances best). The theater was open in back with a stunning view of the Jemez Mountains framed by the back of the stage.

In the Magic flute the antagonist is the Queen of the Night, a subtly evil character (if you do not know the opera you do not find out she is the bad guy until the last act). Her first entrance has the darkly spectacular aria (O zittre nicht) which frames most of the action for the rest of the opera. The Santa Fe Opera decided to really jazz up her entrance. For this opera they put her “grotto” on the elevator part of the stage. Then they used dim lighting and carbon dioxide fog to give a dark cavelike effect. When it was time for her entrance the stage went dark and the grotto arose on the elevator from below the stage. As the grotto slowly rose a brief storm broke out over the Jemez. So not only did you have the stage fog swirling around the grotto, the lighting effects of opera, but you had the ragged flashes of lightning in the back ground. By the time the coloratura was done singing her aria the storm had ended. Thanks to nature this was a most spectacular entrance I have ever seen.