Opera: Life Is a Dream

Santa Fe Opera

(505) 986-5900

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The story behind the Santa Fe Opera’s new production is itself a tale of “operatic proportions,” said David Belcher in Opera News. Thirty-five years after Lewis Spratlan composed it, Life Is a Dream is finally having its world premiere. For decades, Spratlan looked for a company to mount his masterwork, based on Pedro Calderón’s 1635 play about a prince who is imprisoned in a tower by his cruel father. Even after a concert performance of Act 2 netted the composer a Pulitzer Prize, producers still said no. Now the Santa Fe Opera has mounted a full staging of the work—and it’s magnificent. Despite so much time spent on the shelf, the composition feels “surprisingly fresh” under the baton of Leonard Slatkin.

There’s no question that Life Is a Dream is “an important opera, the rare philosophical work that holds the stage and gives singing actors real characters to grapple with,” said Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times. The atonal score can be a “workout for the orchestra,” but the plot proves to be the stuff of which operatic masterpieces are made. The drama hinges on the conflict between Segismundo, the young prince, and the father who imprisoned him from birth, after receiving omens that his son would grow up to be a tyrant. It’s hard to understand how such a “viscerally dramatic opera had such a torturous path to production.”

The silver lining of the long delay turns out to be that Life Is a Dream has finally received “not merely an airing, but one of this quality,” said James Keller in the Santa Fe New Mexican. Visually, director Kevin Newbury and set designer David Korins have opted for a timeless, fairy-tale look that perfectly frames the action. Slatkin, making his company debut, “conveys Spratlan’s score with precision, clarity, and well-plotted momentum.” Roger Honeywell forcefully portrays Segismundo as he comes into his own, while soprano Ellie Dehn has an endearing take on his love interest, Rosaura. Proving in every way worth the decades-long wait, Spratlan’s opera is a dream come true.