First the good news. The dancing was first rate. The lead male dancer had a remarkable, gymnastic style that would not have been out of place in a world class floor exercise meet. And all the cast had to take a dancing turn every now and then, not just the corps de ballet. One of the lead baritones was really quite good at it. We never should have let ballet escape from opera into a form of its own. I am usually thoroughly bored at a ballet performance. But worked into an opera with dances for five minutes at a time or less, it went down very well. As for the rest, principally Kalman is no Mozart, indeed not even a Gershwin. A modest talent, writing in a city of ferment, Vienna, in the early years of the century. The other contributory factor is that trying to find a whole cast of people who can sing, dance, and act cannot be easy. So many talents in one body is really more than we can expect. The only really good voice was Maritza herself, and she didn't try much fancy in the way of dancing. The opera opens with a newly impoverished nobleman doing that unheard of thing, getting a job (albeit still in management). He is the farm manager for Countess Maritza. To get the job, he had to conceal his title. The Countess comes to visit the estate for the first time in years. She and her friends condescend to him as a commoner, treatment that he finds insufferable. Instead of drawing the obvious conclusion that the aristocracy are slime and joining the revolution, after a few plot turns, his fortunes are restored and he marries the Countess. After the second act, the cast apparently realizes that the whole libretto is totally unsuitable for opera, and the third act is played as the broadest sort of farce. The lead dancer (I keep wanting to say primo ballarino) shows up as an elderly servant of the hero's aunt, in the general style of Tim Conway's little old men, and rather steals the show. But one of the real heros of the opera at Santa Fe is their remarkable stage. When a mansion house is needed, the full sized house rises from the ground and clicks into place. They are planning some physical improvements, but don't mention doing anything to the stage itself. I guess it's already about as good as you can get. This started out as a plan to put on a new roof this winter, but now calls for essentially rebuilding the whole house, next winter. So how did we end up at this bouffe? Santa Fe is very predictable. Each season is five operas. One by Mozart (we go of course), one by Strauss (almost as inevitable; this year especially, as it's Salome, which I've never seen). One by a living composer (this year's didn't look too interesting). Of the remaining two, I couldn't quite see La Fanciulla del West. Somehow, for me, grand opera set in Cripple Creek Colorado just does not compute. Also, I had a college professor who was inordinately fond of Schnitzler, another fermenting Viennese of that period, though I can't for the life of me recall why he thought Schnitzler and the Vienna of that time was so great.