"There have been many movers and shakers in opera in this country, but so many came from and worked within a tradition that belonged to another time, opera as a foreign phenomenon. "John Crosby is one of the major figures in the history of American opera in the United States," says Washington Opera Artistic Director Frank Rizzo, who got his start in opera at Santa Fe. The result is a unique summer festival that has amply confirmed his faith in opera on American soil on American terms. With funds from his father, a wealthy lawyer who maintained a home in Santa Fe, he purchased an old dude ranch and set up his company in the hills outside town. With remarkable vision and a tenacious belief in the possibility of an American style of opera production, Crosby chose the town the Spanish had dubbed Santa Fe, or "holy faith."Ī New Yorker trained in music at Yale and Columbia, Crosby had spent a year here as an adolescent, recovering from asthma. Apart from a few major centers, most notably New York, Chicago and San Francisco, the American opera scene was barren. In 1957 when Crosby came from the East Coast to found his company, he was stepping both literally and figuratively into a desert. 23, is attracting an international audience for 34 performances of five operas that include a 17th-century Monteverdi work, the American pre- miere of a contemporary Finnish opera, and more familiar items by Mozart, Richard Strauss and Johann Strauss. This year's festival, which continues through Aug. This summer Crosby and his company are celebrating their 30th season of trying to do it right and, more often than not, succeeding. We try to do it right in the first performance - and the fifth and the 10th." Some restlessness seeped out from the young singers in audible groans, which were immediately cut short by Crosby. A few summers ago, John Crosby, founder and general director of the Santa Fe Opera, was conducting a brush-up session with a group of apprentice artists.
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