For my mom’s 80th birthday, we went on an Elderhostel to the Santa Fe Opera. Elderhostel is an organization that provides educational tours for seniors all over the world. The minimum age for a participant is 50, so I qualified. As it turned out I was definitely the youngest person on the tour, and my mom was the oldest. I’d say the average age was mid-sixties.
I wasn’t sure what I would think about the educational component of this tour. I knew we would enjoy the opera itself, but I didn’t know if I would like sitting in classes in the morning and then going on organized tours in the afternoon. As it turned out, it really was a good combination. The teachers were excellent. We took classes in southwestern art, the history of Santa Fe, and on the opera we were going to see, Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. All of the classes made it much easier to appreciate the art and architecture we saw in the afternoons. And going through an organized and thorough review of The Marriage of Figaro made it much easier to enjoy and appreciate that opera, even though I’ve seen it before.
We flew into Albuquerque on Tuesday afternoon and arrived in Santa Fe Tuesday evening, just in time for dinner. Probably the biggest negative of the entire tour was the food. It was passable, but nothing great. I went through the entire tour asking myself if this was something that Lee would enjoy, if we went on one with a topic we were both interested in. I came to the conclusion that the food would be a deal-breaker, so we would need to find one that focused on the food in order to solve that problem.
On Wednesday afternoon we took a bus tour of Santa Fe. It was very, very dry there. It was supposed to be the beginning of the rainy season, and every day it would look as if it was going to rain. We would even SEE rain in the distance, but it would never reach us. Apparently it is not unusual for rain to evaporate there before it ever reaches the ground. It’s strange how my skin reacts to such dry air. It actually makes it break out; I don’t really understand why. My skin seems to like the high humidity in Hong Kong, even with the pollution.
We could all feel the altitude, but I think the fact that I was taking medication for it kept me from feeling ill. Some people on the tour really struggled. Mom felt it but she really did well. That was my biggest fear - that she wouldn’t be able to handle the altitude (7,000 ft) but that proved to be unfounded.
On the tour we saw the plaza, the cathedral, the state courthouse, and the Indians on the plaza selling their jewelry. The courthouse was modern and very beautiful. We saw sculptures outside it that we had learned about that morning. Inside the courthouse there was a display of modern quilts that were simply amazing. They were more like cloth paintings that actual quilts. I surreptitiously took photos of some of them because they were so pretty.
On Thursday we went on a backstage tour of the opera. They provided a modified tour with no stairs for the people that were a bit disabled so mom was able to see it all. Wow! The back of the stage is open with magnificent mountain views. The sides of the theatre are open too so it’s possible that you could get rained on! We saw backstage, the costume shop, the wig shop, the rehearsal space. It’s an amazing theatre. All the set items are rolled on and off from the wings because there is NO backstage. We were actually able to talk to the wigmaker. He said Asian hair made the best wigs – from Thailand and China.
On Friday the teacher of our art class brought in some of her photos and prints for us to buy if we wanted. Mom bought me one of her photos. In the opera class our teacher played the aria Dove Sono. It brought back such memories of my mother singing from when I was a little girl. It was Sarah's birthday this day – June 27th. She turned 25 years old. I now have a child that has been alive for a quarter of a century.
In the afternoon we went to an area of Santa Fe where there were three or four museums close to one another. Mom and I decided to go to the Folk Arts museum and it was so interesting that we ended up spending most of our time there. They had an exhibit of toys, specifically dolls, doll houses and various play figures from all over the world. It was great. There was also an exhibit on textile arts - weaving, embroidery, spinning, lace etc. Afterwards we headed down to the plaza area again and visited two art galleries. This required a significant amount of walking for mom, but she soldiered through and was glad she did. She had to walk about a block to get to the gallery that had a wonderful sculpture garden which she really enjoyed.
Friday was our free evening, so we made reservations at a restaurant on the plaza called La Casa Sena. The food was great. I had a lamb shank that was just perfect. The meat was falling off the bone. I ate every last bite of it, and was so stuffed at the end that I could hardly move.
Saturday was the day of the opera, and the last day of the Elderhostel. Mom and I both decided to sleep in that morning, because the opera started late (9 pm) and was very long, and our flight would leave early the next day so we wanted to be well-rested. I missed the first class and mom missed the first two classes, but that was fine. We both needed the sleep! In the afternoon we went to the Georgia O'Keeffe museum. There was a special exhibit of O’Keeffe’s work juxtapositioned with the photographs of Ansel Adams. They were friends, so the photos and pictures were from the time of their friendship and although very different showed their shared passion for their work.
We got all dressed up to go to the opera. We sat in our seats and watched the sun set behind the stage and the mountains, truly one of the most amazing theatrical experiences I have ever had. I really enjoyed the first half of the opera. I felt very comfortable with the music and the plot, which made it so much more enjoyable than normally. It also was very interesting how they used subtitles superimposed on the back of the seat in front of us, instead of super-titles like they do for most operas. This system was developed by the Santa Fe opera and adopted by the Met. They are currently the only two theatres in the world that use it. I liked it, it was much less obtrusive and I didn’t have a problem following both the lyrics and the action. However after intermission I was attacked by a wave of sleepiness and slept pretty soundly through the second half. Oh well, at least I didn’t snore!
I really enjoyed our trip to Santa Fe. I’m glad I figured out a way for us to do this together, and I’m REALLY glad mom was able to handle this physically and enjoyed the trip as well.
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