Opera Warhorses

Nashville is the official capital of the State of Tennessee and the world’s unofficial capital of American country music, but it is also the birthplace and home town of Wagnerian heldentenor Clifton Forbis. In yet another extraordinary example of what might properly be described as a Golden Age of American opera singing, Forbis is inhabiting the [...]

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Puccini’s “Madama Butterfly” is the Santa Fe Opera’s signature work, having been the first performance by the company in 1957 and having opened new houses in 1968 and 1998. The opera’s host city in Northern New Mexico takes pride in its 16th century European ties that precede the birth of opera, yet the State of [...]

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Santa Fe Opera, which in its 54 year history has performed 13 operas by Richard Strauss, several in multiple seasons, has seldom mounted works by 19th century French composers, beyond Bizet’s “Carmen”. Thomas’ “Mignon” was done in 1982, and Debussy’s “Pelleas et Melisande” (actually a 20th century work) was performed twice in the 1970s, and [...]

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