Parking lot parties aren’t just for sports enthusiasts. — If you are anything like me, you might think of tailgating as a beer-soaked activity that precedes cheering for athletes playing with numbers on their shirts. But in the huge Santa Fe Opera parking lot, dining behind your parked vehicle precedes cheering for players in the orchestra pit and costume-adorned singers on stage.
Although tailgating is usually on a college campus or outside an event venue, the Santa Fe Opera’s parking lot is at an altitude of over 7,000 feet, looking out at the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The setting offers gold, pink, and purple sunsets splashed across the wide-open western sky. Tailgaters often arrive several hours before the summer opera performances begin and opt for prime parking spots near the theatre in the upper lot. Sometimes, especially on opening nights, ticket holders may dress like characters in the particular opera, so bullfighters, Parisian bohemians, a bird catcher, or even the Queen of the Night may wander past your paella as you dine.
This summer, diners dotted the parking lanes and filled picnic areas before a performance of composer Guiseppe Verdi and librettist Francesco Maria Piave’s 1853 opera, La Traviata. I loved the fact that the dinner crowd spoke about the pleasure of eating and drinking while enjoying the company of friends; then, the opera opened with a lavish Parisian soirée where Violetta, a famed sex worker, sings about her love of partying and pleasure.
Under a 10×10 foot white tent, eight friends and relatives from Albuquerque pleased their palates with broiled salmon, kale salad with cranberries and parmesan, crisp fresh vegetables, rosemary picked from one of their gardens, corn and avocado salad with black beans and jalapenos. Four of them were lawyers, four were doctors, two were brothers, and they’d all been buddies for 30 years…