Shakespeare's play became a trenchant commentary on dictatorship and racism. And musically, "Carmen" excelled.
By David Patrick Stearns [Philadelphia Inquirer, 6 August 2006]

SANTA FE, N.M. - Opera audiences here seem to converge from different decades, whether they're dowagers unchanged since the 1950s, sun-baked disco bunnies from the 1980s, or the tattooed-and-pierced 21st-century set. How well the Santa Fe Opera serves this patchwork constituency is an annual source of curiosity that draws artistic directors from Philadelphia to Seattle. And that's why any given season here is an operatic crystal ball for much of the rest of the country.