Opera Southwest has been trying to get Kathleen Clawson, who lives in Albuquerque, to direct a production for years. This sounds straightforward until you try it. Kathleen was busy running Dayton Opera, working at Santa Fe Opera, directing productions elsewhere, and generally maintaining a schedule almost designed to frustrate our efforts.
We’ve finally managed it. And it has been worth the trouble.
Kathleen’s connection to opera in Albuquerque goes further back than her own career. Her father, Gene Ives, was among Opera Southwest’s founding generation of singers, appearing in our very first opera: Cosi fan tutte. He was the sort of larger-than-life personality who could sing Kismet, Man of La Mancha, and appear at the Santa Fe Opera, while also maintaining a career at Sandia National Laboratories. Albuquerque used to produce quite a few such people. It would be nice if we could figure out how to do it again.
Kathleen followed him into the profession, first as a mezzo-soprano and eventually as a director. She sang in sixteen Opera Southwest productions under the late Sally Opel, studied at UNM, and went on to spend more than twenty years at Santa Fe Opera, where she helped train generations of apprentice singers and directed two world premieres.
Then there’s Dayton. Kathleen began directing there in 2009 and became Artistic Director in 2021. During her tenure, Dayton Opera reports that ticket sales increased 112%, a figure that ought to attract considerably more attention in an industry whose favorite subject is the allegedly inevitable disappearance of its audience.
Which brings us to Cavalleria rusticana.
Kathleen has brought a practiced command of the theater to this production. Mascagni’s opera is short, violent, and utterly unforgiving of bad direction. There is no second act in which to repair the damage. Every relationship must be established quickly, every dramatic turn must register, and the whole thing has to move.
After years of trying to get our calendars to agree, we’re delighted to discover that Kathleen is every bit as good as we’d hoped.
Cavalleria runs October 25-November 1, 2026
