The Crosby Theatre sits about a mile north of your driveway. On a July evening, if the wind is right and your windows are open, you can sometimes hear the tune-up drifting down from the mesa before the sunset finishes. Most of Santa Fe plans a trip to the Santa Fe Opera. Monte Sereno residents plan the rest of the evening around it.
That proximity changes what the 2026 Festival Season is for. Fifty minutes of driving, parking, and shuttle logistics is what separates a casual opera-goer from a season subscriber almost everywhere else in the country. Here, that friction does not exist. The 2026 calendar rewards neighbors who treat the season the way you would treat a favorite serialized show: dip in weekly, follow a cast, come back for the encore.
The 2026 Season at a Glance
The 69th Festival Season features 38 performances of two new productions, two celebrated revivals and an American premiere, running July 3 through August 29.
| Production | Composer | Run Dates | Director / Conductor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Madama Butterfly | Puccini | July 3 – August 29 | Melanie Bacaling / John Fiore |
| The Magic Flute | Mozart | July 4 – August 28 | Christopher Luscombe / Harry Bicket |
| Eugene Onegin | Tchaikovsky | July 18 – August 19 | Alessandro Talevi / Keri-Lynn Wilson |
| Rodelinda | Handel | July 25 – August 21 | R.B. Schlather / Harry Bicket |
| Lili Elbe (American premiere) | Picker / Stollman | August 1 – August 27 | — |
Dates are drawn from the 2026 Season lineup published by TOURISM Santa Fe and the company's own press announcement.
What You Already Missed, and What You Haven't
Opening Weekend has come and gone. Opening Weekend took flight on July 3 with Lee Blakeley's acclaimed production of Puccini's Madama Butterfly, revived by Melanie Bacaling, followed on July 4 by a new international co-production with Garsington Opera of Mozart's The Magic Flute directed by Christopher Luscombe. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham was there. If you were traveling for the Fourth, do not treat that as a loss. Both productions run all the way through late August, which means you have six more weeks to catch either one on a night that suits your dinner plans rather than the calendar's.
The next three works stagger their openings across the middle of the season, which is where the serialized-television analogy really lands:
- July 18 — Eugene Onegin. This is a revival of the company's striking 2021 production, when pandemic protocols pushed the chorus offstage and dancers conveyed the action through movement; the 2026 staging returns the work in its complete theatrical vision with newly designed and built costumes, full chorus integration and richly layered stage direction. If you saw the 2021 version from a distanced seat, this is a different opera.
- July 25 — Rodelinda. Handel's baroque tragedy, offered for the first time at the Santa Fe Opera, led by Music Director and early music specialist Harry Bicket with direction by R.B. Schlather. Countertenor Iestyn Davies and soprano Lucy Crowe headline. Baroque opera is a rare booking anywhere in North America.
- August 1 — Lili Elbe. The American premiere of Tobias Picker and Aryeh Lev Stollman's Lili Elbe, drawn from the 1920s Paris and Copenhagen story that inspired The Danish Girl. New works get one premiere. This one is happening a mile from your house.
The Cast Worth Following
If you want a reason to see more than one production this summer, follow the singers who appear across the season. Harry Bicket conducts Mozart's The Magic Flute in a production by Christopher Luscombe, with Josh Lovell, Joélle Harvey, Rainelle Krause, Alexander Köpeczi, Will Liverman, Spencer Hamlin, and Le Bu in the leading roles. Olga Kulchynska and Mattia Olivieri star in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin with Iván Ayón-Rivas, Elmina Hasan, and Alexander Köpeczi, with Keri-Lynn Wilson and Robert Tweten conducting. Köpeczi appears in both. So does Le Bu, who returns as the Bonze in Madama Butterfly and the Speaker in The Magic Flute. Track a bass across two productions and the season starts to feel like a company you know, not a festival you visit.
The Two Sundays to Block Off in August
Most residents keep coming back to the mainstage. The two nights that reward the neighbor-level ticket habit are the ones tourists rarely book.
On August 16, apprentices present fully staged and costumed opera scenes designed and created by the technical apprentice program, accompanied by piano. On August 23, apprentice singers return in concert format with the Santa Fe Opera Orchestra onstage, conducted by Iván López Reynoso.
Two reasons these belong on a Monte Sereno calendar. The first is price. Adult tickets start at $25, which is roughly a takeout dinner. The second is the caliber of who has come through this program. The apprentice program has launched major careers for artists including Joyce DiDonato, Michael Fabiano, Rachel Willis-Sørensen, Will Liverman, and Kate Lindsey; for many opera fans, these performances are a chance to see future international stars before they launch their careers. Liverman is on the mainstage this year in The Magic Flute. A decade from now, one of the names on the August 23 program will be on a Met poster and you will remember hearing them from your regular seat.
The Five-Minute Drive Changes the Ritual
Here is the piece that neighbors sometimes take for granted. Parking lots open three hours before performances. In practice that means tailgates from roughly 5 p.m. for an 8 p.m. curtain in July. Almost every other patron on that hillside is either running down from a hotel with a hastily packed cheese plate or paying for a pre-ordered picnic box.
You have a kitchen five minutes away.
A working Monte Sereno rhythm, tested by residents who go often:
- 6:15 p.m. Leave the house with a cooler you actually assembled from your own refrigerator.
- 6:25 p.m. Park, unfold chairs, watch the sun move behind the Jemez.
- 7:45 p.m. Curtain call. The Crosby's open sides mean the desert light finishes the first act for you.
- 11:00 p.m. Home. In bed. No hotel, no shuttle back to a downtown lot.
For anyone visiting from out of town, the opera runs a shuttle from the Rail Runner for a car-free option. For you, the ritual is shorter and quieter than any subscriber in the country gets to enjoy.
Building the Rest of the Summer Around It
Named "Festival of the Year" in 2022 by the International Opera Awards, the Santa Fe Opera annually draws 70,000 people from New Mexico and around the globe. Most of them will structure a two- or three-night trip around a single show. Your job, as a neighbor, is to structure the rest of your summer around the season.
A practical shape for August:
- See Rodelinda while Bicket is still at the podium and baroque opera is still in your zip code.
- Sit Lili Elbe on a night you can talk about it afterward. Premieres have a shelf life measured in years, not weeks.
- Bring one out-of-town guest to Madama Butterfly for the tradition, and pair it with a downtown dinner beforehand.
- Close the season on August 23 with the apprentice concert. It is the quietest night at Crosby and the one that leaves the strongest impression of what the company actually is.
The Santa Fe Opera is located at 301 Opera Drive, Santa Fe, NM 87506; the Box Office is open Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 800.280.4654 or 505.986.5900. Ten digits and a five-minute drive is a shorter commute to world-class performance than almost anyone reading a review of this season will ever have. Use it.
If your relationship to Monte Sereno has started to feel less like a residence and more like a front-row seat to something larger, that is not an accident. It is the reason the neighborhood was planned where it was. When the time comes to tell that story, whether you are settling deeper in or thinking about what comes next, the Ricky Allen-Tara Earley Group is glad to sit at the table. Tell your home's story — work with the RCT Team.
