In a move that was perhaps inevitable in the shadow of COVID-19, the Santa Fe Opera and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival canceled their summer seasons Monday.
Combined with other local cancellations, such as that of the Santa Fe Desert Chorale’s summer offerings, it means September is the earliest possible month major groups can go back to the business of making music.
“This has been the most challenging professional experience of my life,” said opera General Director Robert K. Meya, “and that includes my four years at the New York City Opera when the company went through a bankruptcy, a restructuring and the closure of its home theater for 18 months.
“But the process our board and staff have gone through over the last seven weeks has given me a great deal of consolation, as well as optimism about our future, which we’ve been able to explore in depth.”
The 2020 opera season was scheduled to run July 3 to Aug. 29 and featured five main stage productions and 37 performances: Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, Dvorák’s Rusalka, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, and the world premiere of an operatic version of David Henry Hwang’s play M Butterfly with a score by Huang Ruo.The opera also canceled all associated on-site activities, including the apprentice scenes performances, backstage tours and a children’s summer camp program.
Another casualty is the Festival of Song, three vocal recitals that were a joint project with Performance Santa Fe, scheduled July 26 and Aug. 2 and 9 at the Scottish Rite Center.It is the first time in the opera’s 64-year history that it has canceled a season — even after a theater fire in 1967, the show went on at a high school gym.
“It’s truly historic and unprecedented,” said Emily Doyle Moore, director of media and public relations.
So, possibly, will be the loss of ticket revenue, which in the 2019 season totaled almost $9.4 million.The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival’s 41 performances were scheduled from July 19 to Aug. 24 and included the world premiere of festival Artistic Director Marc Neikrug’s A Song by Mahler, a solo recital by legendary pianist Richard Goode, Beethoven’s complete piano trios performed over a three-evening span, and a vocal recital series that featured mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung and tenor Paul Groves, among others.
Like Meya and the heads of other local arts groups forced to cede their seasons to the pandemic, festival Executive Director Steven Ovitsky was devastated by the necessity to fold this summer.
“The decision-making process was agonizing, and it feels good to finally be moving ahead,” he said of the festival, which was founded in 1972.“We’re now calling all our donors and subscribers personally to let them know about what’s happening, and everyone is being extremely sympathetic,” he said.
Ticket holders of the 2020 seasons can donate the value of the tickets back to the company as a charitable contribution, receive a credit for their value to be applied to purchases for the 2021 or 2022 season, or get a refund. Patrons can also request a combination of the three options.The opera also has launched a ticket donation matching campaign. A group of board members and other donors has pledged up to $3 million, matching the value of donated tickets on a dollar-for-dollar basis.
It’s impossible to know how either group will fare fiscally.
