And apprentices function critically too, as Carin Gilfry, in her second year in the apprentice program, provides an archly amusing performance, along with baritone apprentice, Craig Verm, suitably scheming and somewhat oily. The shoes of the jester Clarin, who functions as jesters always do, with both humor and incisive insight, are ably filled by Keith Jameson, familiar to Santa Fe audiences from tenor roles past as well as his tenure as an apprentice. Soprano Ellie Dehn makes her first appearance in Santa Fe in the pivotal role of Rosaura (with a simply beautiful aria at the end of the second act). Also back this year as the nobleman Clotaldo is baritone James Maddelena, who has enjoyed success in a number of avant-garde roles (think Nixon in China, as well as last year’s premiere, The Letter, in which he made his Santa Fe debut).

As his father King Basilio, bass-baritone John Cheek makes his Santa Fe debut as a ruler who wants to preserve the harmony of his kingdom but makes the fraught decision to take an omen as fact. Tenor Roger Honeywell, who debuted here in 2007 with another premiere ( Tea: A Mirror of the Soul) returns to Santa Fe as Prince Segismundo, who must find a balance between his early life and his future, reality and the dream world. I found the casting to be appropriate and the acting genuinely convincing.

The letter santa fe opera