QUICK TAKE

Santa Fe Opera

What: 2005 summer series Performances: "Turandot" - Aug. 2, 6, 9, 15, 20, 24, 27 "The Barber of Seville" - Aug. 1, 8, 13, 16, 19, 25 "Lucio Silla" - July 29, Aug. 4, 10 "Peter Grimes" - Aug, 5, 11, 17 "Ainadamar" - July 30, Aug. 3, 12, 18, 23, 26 Tickets: Individual tickets are $24-$142. For information on individual and series tickets., call 1-800-280-4654 or visit online at www.santafeopera.org (ticket information is on the left side of the Web site's page). Dress code: Suits-and-ties attire to jumpsuits - everything is seen at Santa Fe Opera (except formal wear). Leave the umbrella home. The building's redesign a few years back eliminated the possibility of rainfall on patrons. Getting there: Expect about an 8-hour drive (about 565 miles) from Tucson to the Santa Fe Opera. ● Take Interstate 10 and head east toward El Paso. While in New Mexico, take Interstate 25 toward Albuquerque. Continue north to Santa Fe and take Exit 282 (St. Francis Drive, which is a major thoroughfare). Northbound, St. Francis Drive becomes U.S. 84/285. The Santa Fe Opera is located seven miles north of the downtown Santa Fe Plaza on the west side of U.S. 84/285. ● Nightly shuttle service runs from both Santa Fe and Albuquerque. It includes an early-bird shuttle for those who want to take in a talk or have dinner before the performance. Reservations are required; make them through the box office, 1-800-280-4654.. ● The opera Web site suggests arriving no later than 30 minutes prior to the performance time to avoid traffic congestion. There are two public parking areas staffed by attendants. Parking is free, as is a shuttle between the lower parking area and the theater.

Meager beginnings belie lofty present-day stature Santa Fe Opera, a premier destination for opera lovers around the globe, began as a tiny operation in an unlikely locale. Tucked into hills above Santa Fe, the graceful opera building seems to lift the landscape beneath it, and the road to Taos is clogged with the throng of traffic most nights during the opera's summer season. At one time, this contemporary reality - the Santa Fe Opera - was nothing more than an impossible dream, with emphasis on the impossible. Conductor John Crosby opened his little enterprise on a wing and a prayer in 1957. Crosby, a musician of exemplary training and aristocratic temperament, had an insane idea: Start a professional opera company in a remote location where there was no history of professional music-making and a very small population base. The strategy: Produce plenty of contemporary works - the kind everybody says they don't want to hear - along with lesser-known mainstream works and the occasional chestnut, on virtually no money, during the summer in an outdoor theater. It seemed as ridiculous as producing a television comedy about a bunch of losers who do nothing but hang out in their New York apartments. But just as television's "Seinfeld" succeeded because its vision was unique and its visionary persistent, Santa Fe Opera endured early failure to become the largest summer opera season in the Western states, and one of the most important companies anywhere, anytime. That first year, however, brought red ink and precipitation. "What sticks in my memory" about that first season, founder Crosby, who died in 2003, said in a famous quote, "was money and rain - no money, lots of rain."

The budget was only $110,000, and still the company lost money. Crosby didn't give up, and he didn't shift the emphasis to all-Puccini, all the time. Maybe he knew he had something special going for him because of Santa Fe's cultural history. One thing he probably knew was what's true for real estate is true for the performing arts - location, location, location. Santa Fe attracts artists and the people who crave art. Long before Crosby, visual artists flocked there, developing a Santa Fe style that culminated in the bleached cow skulls and airy flora of Georgia O'Keeffe. Novelist D.H. Lawrence came to the region, finding in the Indian tribes some vibration akin to his own life-force beliefs. The Romans wrote about genius loci, the "spirit of a place." Crosby probably saw in Santa Fe a certain spirit conducive to the arts, and he bet on it. The bet has paid off, big-time. This season alone, the company expects to sell more than 82,000 tickets to people from every state in the Union, plus Canada, Mexico, Japan and various Western European countries. If there's rain, the recent remodeling of the building will shield patrons from the damp. And the ink is expected to flow black. Kenneth LaFave