It’s the “Summer of Color” in Santa Fe. That’s the theme for a series of exhibitions and events that are linking New Mexico museums together in 2015.
“The Red that Colored the World” is a huge exhibition at the Museum of International Folk Art. “Turquoise, Water, Sky: The Stone and Its Meaning” is smaller and more compact at the Museum of Indian Arts. “Blue: Indigo and Cobalt” fills the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, while another more-inclusive show, “Colors of the Southwest,” sprawls through the New Mexico Museum of Art. A $25 culture pass enables you to see as many exhibits as possible in the time available.
What about black? It’s conventionally thought of as the absence of color, but one could argue that Santa Fe Opera has added iridescent black to the palette as the exception.
This summer, the company is presenting the world premiere of “Cold Mountain,” a shimmering specimen of dark intensity. Deeply human, the opera has added emotional weight and dimension to the summer spectrum.
Based on Charles Frazier’s National Book Award-winning novel, the opera has been co-commissioned and produced by SFO and two other companies, Opera Philadelphia and Minnesota Opera. After its summer in Santa Fe, the work will travel to points east.
Created by American composer Jennifer Higdon and librettist Gene Scheer, the work has been so enthusiastically received that the company has added a performance, no small decision for a house that seats 2,200. Aug. 24 also will be a family night with special ticket prices. Half the house has already been sold, so call (505) 986-5900 to reserve your tickets soon.
“Cold Mountain” is an American retelling of the great Homeric epic, “The Odyssey.” Like the Trojan War of antiquity that triggered Odysseus’ 10-year journey back to Ithaca, “Cold Mountain” begins in the Civil War. W.P. Inman (baritone Nathan Gunn) walks out of an army hospital and begins a long walk back to North Carolina and his true love, Ada Monroe (soprano Isabel Leonard). She must simultaneously survive the increasing hardships of the home front.
One wonders how an opera might be staged to accommodate parallel stories. Robert Brill’s brilliant set provides the answer.
It’s a singular landscape of wartime despair. Gigantic burned and broken timbers splay into space. Pools of light illuminate spaces where flashbacks and ongoing episodes occur. Brutalities, small mercies and hope transpire among the blackened timbers.
Shifts in musical textures indicate changes in time and place, aided by Elaine McCarthy’s subtle projections. Flashbacks to Ada and Inman’s courtship occur swiftly and sweetly, contrasting dramatically with the harsh realities of war.
Higdon’s music has a distinctive, American sound that evokes Copland’s spacious open fifths and Barber’s streaming sonorities. Particularly effective are duets with rhythmic overlapping lines, in which Inman and Ada yearn for the war to end.
When the villain Teague (tenor Jay Hunter Morris) and his predatory Home Guards brutalize deserters, Higdon marshals a full orchestral arsenal to sharpen tension and undergird a sense of menace.
Were one to thread “Cold Mountain” into the tapestry of Santa Fe’s “Summer of Color,” it would be obsidian. Like Frazier’s novel, the opera weaves together the strains of despair, dark beauty, humanity and hope. And this production is made of whole cloth.
jreynolds@durangoherald.com. Judith Reynolds is a Durango writer, art historian and arts journalist.
If you go
Santa Fe Opera’s world premiere of “Cold Mountain,” Aug. 14, 17 and 22, plus an added “Family Night” performance at 8 p.m. Aug. 24 with special ticket pricing ($25 adults, $12 youth, and 40 percent off regular prices for veterans). Some restrictions apply. For information and tickets, visit www.SantaFeOpera.org or call (505) 986-5900 or (800) 280-4654.
