The lineup for this week looked quite different just a few weeks ago. Continuing the theme of late-breaking performer changes launched by the Santa Fe Opera at its opening weekend in late June, one of the Miami String Quartet members suffered an injury, so the fast-rising Calidore String Quartet will make its Santa Fe debut instead. Then mezzo-soprano Kelley O’Connor had to withdraw from her vocal recital here; she was replaced by baritone Will Liverman, whose recent credits include the title role in X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X at the Metropolitan Opera.
Finally, Hungarian pianist Zoltán Fejérvári was unable to travel to Santa Fe. Fortunately, the festival was able to secure George Li, a 28-year-old American pianist who has been hailed by The Washington Post for his “staggering technical prowess, a sense of command, and depth of expression.” IN THE SPOTLIGHT Liverman and pianist Myra Huang launch the festival’s series of five vocal recitals on Wednesdays at noon with their Wednesday, July 17, program.
It includes two intriguing song cycles, starting with composer Michael Ippolito’s The Long Year from 2021. It’s a setting of seven poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay; each is about nature, and they’re sequenced in a seasonal arrangement from one winter through to the next.
They also have an underlying message. In his program notes, the composer wrote, “These songs express my own longing for a return to a right relationship with the landscape, and other.