Among the Swells in Santa Fe

As many know, Santa Fe is home to a lot of rich people, mostly older people who made their money elsewhere and have retired to this tail end of the Rocky Mountains to live and love among their own kind but with "Santa Fe Style".

While we are older, we are far from rich. We don't live in Santa Fe, and truthfully I wouldn't want to -- though Ms. Ché occasionally casts longing glances there or toward Taos -- but in the little town where we do live our income makes us pretty well off. I sometimes think that we could afford to live in Santa Fe (it's a very expensive city) but barely. Half or more of our income would go for housing; we'd have little or no discretionary income for doing the things we do, whether it's travel, education, health care, or purchasing art. We are only able to donate a substantial portion of our income to various causes in part because we don't live in Santa Fe!

And because we are able to buy art and donate to museums and educational institutions, we are sometimes invited to mix and mingle among the swells of Santa Fe, which in fact we did a while ago at a get together of museum donors, art collectors and fancy people at the home of one of Santa Fe's big collectors in Las Campanas, a very tony newer large homes-on-acreage development on the outskirts of the city.

We'd never been to Las Campanas before. We'd heard about it and about the kinds of people who live there, mostly retired rich people who want to live in something newer that they've had built themselves rather than the often rattletrap money pits on the tiny lots of the Historic Eastside where some of Santa Fe's highest dollar movers and shakers have lived for generations. It's freedom to be out in the country on acreage, with views to die for, and little of the hub bub of the city. In town living is not for faint of heart. Despite the fact that Santa Fe is a small city, traffic can be horrendous, and it can be difficult to get around at the best of times let alone when one or another market or festival is under way. Which is pretty much always.

So, out to Las Campanas we went, taking the trusty red van because the car is in the shop, tooling along seemingly forever on the "Relief Road" to get to the entrance road to Las Campanas, Camino La Tierra, then to thread out way along twisty-turny one lane, one way roads up hill and down dale, making only one wrong turn until we got to the gate that blocked access to the house where we were to have a tour and eat some grub. Handily, a security guard was on duty and opened the gate for us with a great big smile, and we found some place to park on the narrow street out front of the house. There were already a lot of cars, and we weren't even particularly late. My. It seemed like there would be many more than the 40 guests maximum, but no, when we got inside and made a quick count, there were barely thirty, and as the evening progressed no more than an additional five or so arrived.

We knew some of them, but many more were strangers to us, and I'm afraid I was somewhat standoffish with people I didn't know. The hosts were new to us, but very charming, and we felt warm and welcome in their company. We did not initially make a thorough inspection of their collection, but my goodness, just the things within the walled outdoor area were breathtaking.

The house was not as large as I expected, but it was on a three acre lot on the brow of a ridge, and from the back patios, the view of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains was spectacular. Thunder storms were gathering, but we paid the weather little mind as we munched on brie and prawns and homegrown grapes and chatted with various guests, most of whom were our age or older, much richer, and -- perhaps sadly -- mostly lone females. Oh, how many were widows?

The hosts were an interesting couple. He considerably younger than she. She was from Germany, and she reminded me very much of a charming German woman I'd met in Albuquerque some years ago at the Peace and Justice Center where we attended a PBS film about Native children in New England who had been taken from their parents and raised in the equivalent of old-line boarding schools or farmed out to foster care and how they were coping with the experience as adults.

Most Americans have little idea there are present day Native tribes in New York, New England and on much of the east coast as far south as Virginia and beyond. The stories of removal of the Cherokees and others from the Southeast are so strong, there is little inkling that a few Natives still populate many areas of the east. The stories told of the horrors many have endured and still do, however, are heartbreaking.

I chatted with this German lady (whose name I don't recall) after the film presentation because she wanted to talk about how she became interested in Native Americans. How did she, a middle class girl in Germany, become so fascinated with Native Americans that she eventually moved to the Southwest and immersed herself in American Indian culture, lore and legend? She asked me if I'd ever heard of Karl May.

Oh yes, my yes.

I had recently studied some of his works for reason I don't recall (memory not being my strong suit any more). Karl May was a prolific German writer in the last quarter of the 19th Century and the first decade of the 20th Century. He wrote novels, essays, magazine articles and so on, hundreds and hundreds of major works, and probably thousands of minor works and sold hundreds of millions of volumes, many dealing with the American Wild West -- where he'd never been.

His stories of Winnotou the Apache chief, and Old Shatterhand, the white adventurer, were wildly popular in German speaking lands, a popularity that continues to this day, somewhat like the works of Mark Twain in the USA.

The German woman I met and chatted with at the Peace and Justice Center in Albuquerque had grown up reading Karl May novels of the Old West, and as soon as she had the opportunity, she had traveled to the Southwest US to see the lands and people May had described in his books for herself.

She said what she found was even more wonderful than Karl May's invented world, and she vowed one day to live here. And so she did. The story of how she came to live in the Southwest US was as much of an adventure story as anything Karl May wrote. I won't go into the details -- partly because I don't remember them all -- but as we toured the home of our hosts and heard their stories, I was strongly reminded of the stories I'd heard from a lovely German woman years ago. Could I be hearing from the same woman at her home now? I was hearing about Karl May, about her determination, about adventure that continues today, and about a deep and abiding respect for American Indians, a view and respect of the Native Peoples she had learned from popular novels in Germany.

I don't know whether the women were the same one or doppelgangers of one another. I didn't have the opportunity to ask our hostess whether we had met years ago in Albuquerque, and knowing how nervous Santa Fe residents are regarding Albuquerque ("I wouldn't go there for any reason, except to pick someone up from the airport -- and then only if I had to" we've heard more than one Santa Fean say) it might not have been appropriate for me to raise the subject among so many Santa Fe swells. But I continue to think she might be the lady I'd talked to about Karl May years before in Albuquerque.

The art collection we'd gone to view was certainly extensive, and according to our hosts, they'd had the house built specifically to showcase their collection. It did that very well indeed. Many -- perhaps most  -- of the collection had come from their home in Virginia after being transported there from Santa Fe over many years of back-and-forth. Now they had returned to Santa Fe.

Most of the collection focused on Native American art and artists, but there were some remarkable "other" things, including a Kandinsky, a Warhol, several Red Grooms works, a Janis Joplin drawing, and so on. The non-Native works were mostly confined to hallways, offices, and other less public areas of the home.

Among the Native American artists featured were three or four we knew well, and their works were all over the house, so many of them we felt like this couple were their primary patrons. Could be.

Our own collection cannot compare in terms of monetary value. I would estimate the value of the couple's collection at several million dollars, possibly as much as $10 million. Conceivably more.

That's not all that unusual in Santa Fe, but we were chatting with some gallery owners/operators a couple of weeks ago who said that the art market is doing poorly these days, despite the fact that some people are doing very well financially. There's plenty of money sloshing around. The problem seemed to be that older people with money were disposing of their collections -- which put downward pressure on prices -- while younger people with money weren't interested in purchasing art. They wanted to travel, buy fine cars, eat well, and they kept their residences small and simple with little or no room for art. It was a dilemma. There was so much art on the market but too few buyers.

One of the galleries had really high-end historic regional art for sale, paintings from the early 1900s to the 1970s, breathtaking prices --$100,000 +, and yet they were actually 30% to 50% lower than they might have been 10 years ago. I've seen the same phenomenon happen with (some) classic cars, antique furniture, and other collectibles. Despite obscene levels of wealth among the high rollers, what they buy these days is not what once appealed to them. They aren't even buying expensive jewelry at anywhere near the amount they once did when they weren't as rich. What gives?

I have a theory which I can't document, it's just a sense. These people know quite well the peril the planet is in due to the consequences of climate change. They've been preparing for years, and part of the preparation is finding locations that will be relatively safe from sea level rise and temperature extremes -- Santa Fe and environs is one of those locations.

I've written about Jeffrey Epstein's Zorro Ranch up the road from our place and 20 miles or so south of Santa Fe. Well, it's just one of many similar retreats should everything go to shit.  He bought and built it 20 years ago, and ever since the tendency to establish such retreats from catastrophe has only accelerated. They're expensive.

To have one that is both accessible and defensible (as Zorro Ranch is/was) is difficult and costs a fortune. To keep it supplied, patrolled and defended even more so. To the extent the money of the rich is going anywhere, I suspect that's where it's going. Priorities...

(Just a quick note on Zorro Ranch activities lately. We pass by it every time we go to Santa Fe and return, so we can keep tabs on visible activity there. There are parts of the ranch we can't see from the road, but we can see the gigantic hacienda, the worker-village, the gate to the property, the microwave and cell-phone towers, the cattle, etc. New No Trespassing signs have gone up on the fences by the road. There's a prominent one beside the gate. Exterior lights are on at the hacienda, but there don't appear to be interior lights on in the house much any more. Lights are on in the workers' village. We have not seen patrol vehicles since that one time I mentioned weeks ago. There have been attempts to enter the ranch by people unknown. For example, one day there were two white SUVs stopped at the gate, both apparently filled with passengers. A young-ish slim brunette woman was standing beside the first SUV talking to the driver. I'm pretty sure she was part of the party trying to get in.. I suspect they were media. There have been previous unsuccessful attempts by media to get through the gate. Once a British accented woman answered the gate buzzer and was quite curt with media trying to get in. Staff in pickups comes and goes periodically. The exotic cattle still graze. In other words, the ranch appears to continue in operation, but except for that one time we saw the hacienda lit up as if for a party, the main house appears to be unused. But who knows? And yes, there is supposed to be a secure bunker of some sort under the hacienda. Speculate as you will...)

Among the Swells

We go to the Opera once a year. Yes, the Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, with which we have something of a historic connection (I suppose) since the '80s when we were in St. Louis working for the Opera Theatre of St. Louis which was headed by Richard Gaddes -- who also, of course, was head of the Santa Fe Opera.

Our trip to St. Louis in 1983 (or was it 82?) was our first encounter with New Mexico. (also our first encounter with St. Louis, but that's another story.) The "enchantment" New Mexico is known for was immediate. We may not have known it at the time, but that first time in New Mexico planted the seed that led to our eventual retirement here. One of the productions we worked on in St. Louis was "La Verbena de la Paloma," a Spanish zarzuela, which featured a performance by Maria Benitez and her flamenco troupe which had been invited to come to St. Louis from Santa Fe by... Richard Gaddes. That was our introduction to flamenco, an interest we still pursue whenever we can -- which is fairly often in Santa Fe and Albuquerque.

Last year, we attended "Carmen". This year it was "Salome." We have this thing for bad women I guess ;-). We sit in the back of the orchestra section, in the cheap seats. The only cheaper tickets are for standing room on the crossover behind us. Given the layout of the place, the cheap seats in the back of the orchestra section are really quite fine, and we have no complaints about them at all (unlike the situation at Popejoy Hall in Albuquerque, where even the expensive seats can be terrible because the place is so poorly designed.)

Santa Fe Opera has certain traditions, including that of the Swells coming early in their Lexi and Mercedeses and Range Rovers and Escalades to sit in the parking lot, tailgating elegant meals -- which you can have catered by the venue if you like, or bring your own, and you can even bring your servants along to serve you if desired. Oh, it's all very swell.

Some people dress in their finest Southwestern or Manhattan attire, others, like me, don't. You can guarantee I'll be wearing a ballcap and jeans, not even fancy boots and belt buckles. Last night, though, for fun, I put on my  Translator t-shirt and Turkey Track ball cap from the Virgil Ortiz collection and wore an overshirt that I've had for years that is printed with various artist's signatures (Picasso, Matisse, Chagal, etc.) and "designs." So I was pretty festive compared to my usual get-up.

We do not tailgate at the Opera. Instead, this year, we decided to have a de luxe dinner at The Compound, a Santa Fe restaurant institution on Canyon Road. We decided to dine there because we'd attended a reception there for an IAIA scholarship recipient a week or so ago and had a wonderful time -- and because our tickets to the Opera included a gift certificate for $10 off dinner. Well, who could resist, right?

Truth to tell, we have never paid more than $100 for dinner out anywhere, and we knew that this dinner out would cost more than that, conceivably well more than that, even with the Opera certificate, but what the heck. If it's only once a year...

The only people who would routinely dine at The Compound are Swells because they are the only ones who can afford to do so on a regular basis. As it happens, we know some Swells through some of our various activities in  the arts and IAIA, and so it wasn't much of an off-putting experience to be among them at dinner. We knew some of the people dining last night at The Compound, some of whom, like us, were having a bite before heading to the Opera. "Hello, hello, nice to see you, how are you," that sort of thing. "Oh, I love your jacket!" This to Ms Ché. One day on a whim, she bought an embroidered jacket from Guatemala that she fell in love with at a shop in Santa Fe, and she wears it whenever she's feeling particularly festive. It never fails to draw complements.

We had our dinner -- it was lovely -- and when the check came, it was almost exactly $100, and I thought it was... reasonable for what we had, every bite and sip of which was excellent. What was nicest about the experience was that it was very relaxing after a rather long and tiring day, especially for Ms. Ché whose Thursdays as a student at IAIA are long indeed. On Thursdays, I have my own chores to take care of, some of which I've inherited from Ms Ché since she can't do them when she's at school (oh...), and so it's a very busy day for me,  too. We were able to unwind and relax at dinner which made the Opera experience even more rewarding.

Getting from The Compound on Canyon Road out to the Opera can be a little tricky. You have to use the dirt road that runs beside the Santa Fe River to get to one of the main cross streets that will get you to Paseo de Peralta which will hook you up with St. Francis Drive which you take all the way out past the military cemetery to the edge of Tesuque Pueblo where -- by golly -- up on the hill perches the Santa Fe Opera facility, in one of the most spectacular settings in all of the Santa Fe area (which has a lot of spectacular settings).

The Opera performs in a sheltered outdoor facility. The audience faces the sunset, and the sunset can be awe inspiring, breathtaking, requiring applause -- the way we once did the sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico when we were working in Florida. Even out where we live in the Middle of Nowhere, in the Empty Quarter of New Mexico, the sunsets can take your breath away (sunrise too), but in Santa Fe, they can practically knock you out because of the mountains all around. And the Santa Fe Opera facility very cleverly integrates the sunsets into the overall ambiance and experience, sometimes even into the settings for particular operas.

Well, we missed the sunset from our seats at the Opera because we were down in the parking lot chatting with friends who were tailgating, oh my. Yes, indeed. Well, in this case, the friend was a Tesuque Pueblo native (and alumna of IAIA) who lived just down the road, and she was there with a friend of hers, an Indian whose tribe or pueblo we did not discover, who said he'd never been to an opera. I said I thought he would have an interesting time with this one. Oh my oh my.

We told of producing the play by Oscar Wilde on which the opera is based some 20 years ago in Sacramento, and how it met with some controversy and to-do because it was pretty... out there. For Sacramento theater at the time, it certainly was. The director was into whips and chains, piercings and tattoos, and he used every one of them in the production. A couple of nearly naked heavily tattooed and pierced young men perched on a tower above the stage throughout the performance as if they were gargoyles. The John the Baptist was himself nearly naked throughout, though his body was painted white with "native" designs worked in to his flesh. He was whipped on stage until his blood flowed. For real. This was possibly the most shocking part of the production. The Salome, on the other hand, was almost chaste and pure, driven to a kind of madness in her lust for John the Baptist, and ultimately, of course, to have his head on a silver platter, not because she was "bad" but because she was driven mad by her mother and the trauma of her stepfather's murder of her father. Oh, it was a strong psychological study as well as performance art that broke a lot of boundaries in Sacramento's theater scene in those days. That was part of our mission, however, so...

We didn't know how the opera would be staged as we had only seen a couple of pictures, and as it turned out, they weren't even from this production. We expected it would be challenging, no matter...

Soon after we took our seats, we saw other friends entering the auditorium, and though I wouldn't necessarily call them rich, I would say they're Swells of a sort in that they publish one of the area's arts and culture monthlies. Other Swells, of course, filled the seats at a leisurely pace, while the western skies burst into momentary slashes and swaths of color and then faded to gray as the house lights dimmed and the performance began.

It was challenging -- which we didn't mind at all. The story is not a happy one, and it doesn't end well. But we knew that. The staging was remarkable -- if rather static at times -- and the orchestra was superb. The singers, particularly the Salome, appeared to stumble a bit at the beginning, but they ultimately solidified their performances, and the hour-forty intermissionless performance seemed to go very quickly.

The main challenge was sorting out the figurative and psychological images in the "dream ballet" -- which was actually a substitute for the Dance of the Seven Veils. As a rule, opera divas do not dance. And in this case, though the Salome had a few "movements" I guess you'd call them, she did not dance for Herod or us.  She was pretty rigid during the "dance" sequence, reminding me a bit of the Carmen last year who stood stock still -- somewhat hilariously -- during her alleged dance sequences. 

Nor were there any literal veils in Salome's no-dance dance. Instead, the veils were interpreted as emotional and psychological veils that were expressed through layers and layers of the setting and mimed performances of the murder of Salome's father by Herod, and the layers of trauma that made Salome what she was. I have to say that this was not entirely clear in the production itself, though the director's explanation in the program -- which I didn't read beforehand -- helped to clarify the sequence for me after the fact.

References to "the Jews" got quite a few laughs, and the scene in which they dispute practically everything under the sun with one another was pretty funny. A lot of Santa Fe's Swells are Jews, so it would seem, and they appeared to get the joke just fine. It was presented in good faith and good fun.

Afterwards we skedaddled as it had been a very long day already and it would be another hour and a half on the road to get back home. No time for mingling and chit-chat among the opera buffs and the Swells.

My impression was that they -- like we -- were surprised and pleased with the production overall.

We'd seen any number of Carmens over the years -- and look forward to seeing more -- but last night's Salome was new to us and may have been new to much of the audience. Though the story is well-known, the music isn't (there's nothing you can whistle on your way out the door). Strauss's music is quite modern (for 1905) in fact and is deliberately a-tonal at times. Disturbing. Given what's going on, what do you expect? The setting was dominated by an intricate silver sided box that rotated and opened up this way and that, exposing John the Baptist's cell, the banquet room of King Herod, and Salome's traumas. The lighting was sometimes a bit dimmer than I would have liked, but that's a minor quibble. The staging was frequently quite static as performers lay or stood or sat still with little or no action observable. This wasn't so much a problem as it was noticeable. I would have liked to see more physical action on the part of the cast, but that's my preference, not an essential element.

This was Salome's production through and through, whereas the production of Oscar Wilde's play that we did was much more about John the Baptist. Both are important to understanding the story, and either can be the focus of attention.  But in Strauss's version, it is all about Salome -- and John the Baptist is little more than a supporting character.

My introduction to Salome was when I was in high school and acquired a booklet of Aubrey Beardsley drawings illustrating Oscar Wilde's play. Interestingly, that same booklet was on sale in the Opera Shop. I didn't buy it -- we have too many books as it is -- but I smiled when I saw it. Circles within circles, yes?