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Opera for All Voices (OFAV) began as a consortium of North American opera companies committed to co-commissioning and co-producing new operatic works for audiences of all ages that bear the same artistic integrity and depth of storytelling as main stage works. Over several years it has grown in its mission to tell "stories of our time." Follow host Andrea Fellows Fineberg from The Santa Fe Opera and OFAV collaborators and stakeholders as we explore the process, the context, and the story of commissioning and producing new operas in America. www.santafeopera.org

Jul 13, 2022

All aboard the Key Change time machine for a two-part trip! On this half of the journey, we toggle back to the origins of a beloved community-based program and then forward to celebrate its exciting expansion. 2023 will mark the 50th anniversary of the Pueblo Opera Program, lovingly known around the Santa Fe Opera as POP. 

Key Change commemorates this momentous event by passing the mic to colleague Kyle Gray, SFO’s Manager of Community Relations & Government Affairs. Kyle and his guests discuss the POP legacy and Pueblo Opera Cultural Council (POCC), which blossomed out of an artistic collaboration between legendary director Peter Sellars and SFO’s Indigenous neighbors during the 2018 production of Doctor Atomic — with guests Renee Roybal, Pueblo of San Ildefonso, and Claudene A. Martinez, Pueblo of San Ildefonso.

“I’m 63 years old, and I’ve been going to and enjoying opera since I was a teenager,” Renee says. For nearly 50 years, POP has introduced thousands of Native American children to the grand adventure of opera. Both women have fond memories of inspiring behind-the-scenes tours, inventive performances, and rides on plush buses to the most anticipated social event of the summer. 

With POP’s legacy secure, the women have focused on POCC, which features members of the San Ildefonso Pueblo, Santa Clara Pueblo, and Tesuque Pueblo. POCC seeks to foster the Indigenous tradition of cross-cultural hospitality. Claudene says the Doctor Atomic experience was a meaningful beginning for the advisory. “I think that’s how POCC [will] continue to work with the opera, on other future moments that we could get involved in and educate.”

FEATURING

Andrea Fellows Fineberg - Host, Key Change

Kyle Gray, Santa Fe Opera Manager of Community Relations & Government Affairs

Renee Roybal, Pueblo of San Ildefonso

Claudene A. Martinez, Pueblo of San Ildefonso

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Doctor Atomic - Santa Fe Opera, 2018

RELATED EPISODES

DSFO0201: More Voices at the Table: Community Engagement and Opera with Kyle Gray

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Key Change is a production of The Santa Fe Opera in collaboration with Opera for All Voices.

Produced and edited by Andrea Klunder at The Creative Impostor Studios

Hosted by Andrea Fellows Fineberg

Audio Engineer: Kabby at Kabby Sound Studios in Santa Fe

Show Notes: Lisa Widder

Theme music by Rene Orth with Corrie Stallings, mezzo-soprano, and Joe Becktell, cello

Cover art by Dylan Crouch

This podcast is made possible due to the generous funding from the Melville Hankins Family Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and an OPERA America Innovation Grant, supported by the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation.  

To learn more about Opera For All Voices, visit us at SantaFeOpera.org.