Dear Mr. MacKay,
As a resident of Mora County and a long time student of opera, I write to you to protest your ill-considered action in signing contracts with a group of oil companies. I am afraid that you have, very early in your tenure as director, precipitated the largest crisis in the history of the Santa Fe Opera. I urge you to reconsider your decision
and to withdraw from the contracts. It would have been prudent if you had made your negotiations public before you signed. Instead you have alienated friends of the opera and involved our opera company in what may be a long legal battle with those who wish to protect the state of New Mexico and two of its unspoiled counties from wanton destruction. The last thing you should want to be is Nemico della patria (Andrea Chenier III; try Merrill or Zancanaro) either of these should give you the meditative climate for you to rethink what you have done.
Sincerely,
Ted Riccardi
Golandrinas, New Mexico
