TICKETS: $40 - $120

Member pre-sale: Wednesday, April 24, 10 am
Public sale: Friday, April 26, 10 am
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FOR ONLINE CUSTOMER TICKETING sales and support contact support@holdmyticket.com or call 1-877-466-3404. 

IN-PERSON WALK-UP SALES ONLY for all shows are available at the Lensic Box Office during Box Office hours. 

The Human Rights Alliance will be hosting a pre-show reception for this special performance by Rufus Wainwright backed by the Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra. This reception will officially kick off HRA's Capital Campaign to fund the first official LGBTQIA+ Center for the greater Santa Fe area. Please join us in bringing this center to fruition to support the diverse needs of the community. Can’t make the reception - please click here to make a donation to support the center!

ABOUT THE VENUE: Santa Fe Opera

Alcohol: Yes, there are bars all around the venue.

Seating: Yes

Outside Food/Drink: No

Parking: Yes 

ADA: Yes

Special thanks to Opera Series Sponsor: Toyota of Santa Fe

RUFUS WAINWRIGHT - WANT SYMPHONIC

CONDUCTED BY LEE MILLS

Join us at the Santa Fe Opera to see Rufus Wainwright perform with The Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra! His  albums Want One and Want Two have been transformed into symphonic masterpieces, and on September 9 he performs with them with the renowned Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra. 

Want One and Two released in short order, one in 2003 the other in 2004, are as iconic as it can get in an iconic musician's catalog. Rolling Stone wrote that "Wainwright's fanciful songs about love and faith place him in the rarefied company of Bjork and Brian Wilson." The Guardian even suspected that "the American Screen Actors Guild has amended its membership rules: you want to work in this town, you'd better go on about how much you like Rufus Wainwright" and then continues to say "Wainwright is never short of something to say. This makes him an anomaly amid current big singer-songwriters". David Bowie praised "Dinner at Eight" as the "best father/son song he knew, calling Rufus "simply one of the great writers."

Paste Magazine elevated Want One to the No. 1 album of the year and Rolling Stone Magazine put it on no. 5 of their best albums of 2003 list.

“This album is also a glorious musical adventure with Wainwright's vocals -- sweet and unerringly hopeful -- reaching out so disarmingly that they make you feel at home amid even the most "daunting" of instrumental moments.” (LA Times) The instrumental moments of these albums produced by Marius de Vries (Madonna, Bjork, Massive Attack, David Bowie) are even heightened for Want Symphonic and you can be sure to feel even more at home: in the glorious and voluptuous House of Rufus.

20 years later Wainwright has revisited both albums in a series of orchestral shows. The "breathtaking and eccentric opulence" (German Rolling Stone) of the original songs will be translated into new lush symphonic arrangements by Sally Herbert (Woodkid, Florence + the Machine) and Max Moston (Antony and the Johnsons). In 2023, Want Symphonic was performed by Rufus at the Proms in London and the Ravinia Festival with the Chicago Symphony. In 2024, he brought his vocal magic to Glasgow with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and is excited to return to Santa Fe on September 9.

Want Symphonic is a sonic Shangri-La for 60 classical musicians, drummer Matt Johnson (Jeff Buckley, St. Vincent) and Wainwright's “velvety truffle of his voice” (London Times). On the single show night, Wainwright will perform a large selection of songs from both albums.

Wainwright says "Want One and Two are maybe the most epic of my albums. They are the two sides of a coin or better my personality, the male and the female, the knight in shining armor and the innocent maiden, ecstasy and restraint, glory and doom, decay and creation, the mature and the child. I am excited to bring these songs to a new level with all new symphonic settings. There is nothing more exciting than singing in front of a huge orchestra."