The Phoenix of Santa Fe

In New Mexico early one morning last week, Georg Schrieber, lighting designer for the Santa Fe Opera Company, heard explosions in his sleep. "I was dreaming," he recalls, "and I remember thinking it sounded like the fireworks at the end of Hans Werner Henze's opera The Stag King. Then I realized that couldn't be right and I woke up." Five hundred feet from the ranch house where Schrieber was staying, the company's redwood theater was engulfed in lurid flames. At dawn, all that was left of one of America's hand somest outdoor music facilities was a tangle of charred timbers.

Only hours before the blaze broke out, the company had marked the midpoint of this summer's season with the U.S. premiere of Paul Hindemith's first full-length opera, Cardillac (1926). The work reflects Hindemith's youthful expressionisms although its intricately polyphonic writing and its theme--the creator v. society--also presage such products of his maturity as the 1938 opera Mathis der Maler. The libretto by Ferdinand Lion is based on an E.T.A.

Hoffmann story about an 18th century Paris goldsmith who is so obsessed with his creations that he sells them reluctantly, then reclaims them by killing his customers. Hindemith set it to a craftsmanlike score that has strong choral writing and moments of trenchant emotion; much of the time it also justifies the quip that the hero is not Cardillac but counterpoint.

Rumbling Thunder. Conductor Robert Craft and Director Bodo Igesz made the most of the fact that Cardillac is swifter and more dramatic than Hin demith's later operas. The elements cooperated too: distant thunder rumbled over the Rio Grande Valley as a vengeful Paris mob killed Cardillac, and through the wide opening at the rear of the stage, the near-capacity audience of 1,100 could see lightning flickering above the blue Jemez Mountains. Hin demith's complex melodies were traced with clarity and polish by a well-schooled, predominantly American cast, notably Baritone John Reardon, whose demented Cardillac was powerful dramatically as well as vocally.

Cardillac was the 18th modern opera produced by Santa Fe General Director John O. Crosby, 41, since he founded the troupe ten years ago. For a while, in the glare of last week's fire, it also looked like the last. All of the company's orchestral scores and most of its costumes were burned, along with the Cardillac sets. But before the ashes had cooled, Crosby was calmly laying plans to rebuild his theater and making arrangements to continue the season on a reduced scale. Two days later, the company was back in business with a. performance of Rossini's Barber of Seville in the gymnasium of a Santa Fe high school.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.