THEN &NOW THE SANTA FE OPERA By Emmaly Wiederholt
LEFT Anna Christy in ‘Lucio Silla’ photo by Ken Howard for the Santa Fe Opera; ABOVE Regina Sarfaty Rickless as Baba the Turk in The Rake’s Progress, 1957 opening season of the Santa Fe Opera; BELOW Regina Sarfaty Rickless, photo by Linda Carfagno
Then: A Cannon Went Off in the Opera World
R
egina Sarfaty Rickless, now an elegant octogenarian, was once an international opera star. She sang in all the big cosmopolitan cities: New York, London, Paris and Zurich. But before that, Regina was a student at Juilliard who just so happened to be selected to sing in the first season of the Santa Fe Opera. John Crosby — developer, founder and first general director of the Santa Fe Opera — played the piano for the opera department at Juilliard while Regina was a student. “I had no idea who he was,” she recalls. “He came to me one day and told me he was developing an opera company in Santa Fe and he wanted me to become a member. I said, ‘Where is Santa Fe?’” This was in 1957. Three months later he came to her with a contract: five operas, five parts. She was 22 years old and hadn’t yet graduated, but Crosby had confidence in her. “We rehearsed on the grass in the sunshine. There were no rehearsal facilities whatsoever,” Regina recounts. “Nobody told me it was a dry climate at
a high altitude. My nose was bleeding, my lips were cracked and I couldn’t breathe. Little by little I adjusted. I was so busy thinking about my notes and words, I didn’t have time to think if we would be successful. By the way, we sang everything in English back then, and doing operas in English is not easy. There was no such thing as the electronic libretto in those days.”
CLOCKWISE Regina Sarfaty Rickless as Suzuki in Madame Butterfly, 1957 opening season of the Santa Fe Opera; Anna Christy in ‘The Last Savage’, photo by Ken Howard for the Santa Fe Opera; Tailgating at the Santa Fe Opera, photo by Kate Russell
Opening night came. Crosby’s father went up to him and said, “You’ve got a winner here.” As Regina puts it: the first night of the Santa Fe Opera, a cannon went off in the opera world. “The second opera we sang opening season was The Rake’s Progress by Stravinsky. And it just so happened Igor Stravinsky himself sitting in the audience one night,” remembers Regina. “The giant musical mind of the 20th century was sitting right in front of me; my heart was pounding. He knew if I was singing the right or wrong notes or rhythms. But he wrote in my program: You were wonderful Sarfaty, congratulations!” There were only 480 seats in the original opera house, but they were packed every night with men in tuxedos and women in furs. As the seasons continued and the years went by, the Santa Fe Opera’s presence only grew in
size and stature, erupting from the tiny seeds Crosby had planted.
time, there’s an exciting artistic energy throughout the whole city.”
“Santa Fe back in the 50s wasn’t anything like it is today. It was a small town with a cozy family atmosphere,” Regina describes. “But we were successful. The first four years I did 13 operas. It opened my mind. I couldn’t wait to come back to Santa Fe each season. I loved it.”
This year, Anna looks forward to a veritable romp; Daughter of the Regiment is a comedy, as was the last opera she performed in Santa Fe. She recalls how in 2011, she doesn’t know how the show got on stage because the cast was laughing all the time. “I think this year will be a riot as well,” she foretells. “I can’t imagine a better group of people.”
Now: A Place Unlike Any Other Anna Christy has sung in the Santa Fe Opera three times: in 2003, 2005 and 2011. This year will be her fourth season, and she will be singing the lead of Marie in the season opener Daughter of the Regiment. She describes singing in Santa Fe as visiting paradise: “It is the most stunning place to work. There’s a feeling of vacation. If I weren’t working so hard singing it would feel like I was at a spa with music floating in the air. At the same
But what Anna’s looking forward to most, in her own words, is: “When I’m onstage and the breeze is going and the sun has just set, there’s this feeling of being in a place unlike anywhere else. To be in that place at that moment, when I could be anywhere, is just amazing. It happens every time.” For more information visit SantaFeOpera.org.