Radio Betty covered The Merry Widow, Turandot, Carmen and Madama Butterfly this month. It was richly informative and sure to enrage listeners who know anything at all about opera.

Here’s the playlist:

• Nessun Dorma - Three Redneck Tenors
• Merry Widow Waltz - Kings of Dixieland
• Meet Me at Maxims - Lisette Verea
• Non piangere, Liu - Sutherland, Pavarotti, Caballe etc + Mehta / London Philharmonic
• Best of Carmen
• Habanera - Angela Gheorghiu
• The Violin - Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego (Featuring Brian Dewan & Eileen Ivers)
• I Make the Dough, You Get the Glory - Kathleen Edwards
• Hockey Monkey - James Kochalka Superstar
• Nessun Dorma - Luciano Pavarotti, Tom Krause, Pier Francesco Poli, Piero de Palma; Zubin Mehta, London Philharmonic Orchestra, John Alldis Choir

We also talked about Gloves Off! A Hockey Opera in Three Acts and invited everyone we know to a fundraiser that includes bustiers and bon bons  (no lie). The invitation reads “give yourself over to absolute pleasure” which is obviously from the Rocky Horror Picture Show so I’m attending dressed as Columbia.

Radio Betty was produced by a fleet of trained mice, at the direction of the geniuses at Sonic Trout. Blame them.

Radio Betty airs on www.womr.org on the second Sunday of every month until they change the locks to the studio. Listen online from 12-1pm or forever hold your peace because they are totally not rebroadcasting this crap.

Just as all those other opera companies are patting themselves on the back for a season well-done and making a batch of blender drinks, Santa Fe Opera is getting started.

They are way before their time. You see, they make everyone work in the summer so that they can stay out of the sun and keep their alabaster complexions. In the winter, they all go to Finland. I hear Finland is lovely in February.

Back in the day, we went to Santa Fe Opera. That was when my mother was still feigning a fondness for opera and dragging our unwilling behinds all over God’s green earth in search of culture west of the Mississippi. We’d pack up the station wagon and go to New Mexico for a long weekend. We’d get tickets near the sound board, because that was the safest place to be when it rained. Smart, no? Somehow their annual 4 inches or so of rain managed to fall when we were there.

I remember once we stayed in a hotel that had a Japanese garden with little bridges and koi ponds. It was charming, even if the whole thing was made of concrete. And then mom would buy turquoise jewelry and try to fit in. One time she bought a coat that looked like a Navajo blanket. Turns out it was a Navajo blanket - a burial blanket, specifically. She got some odd looks with that one.

So as I was wondering what I’m supposed to cover next, I remembered the summer season at Santa Fe. Sorry, Santa Fe.

It looks like they’re doing La Traviata (courtesans!), Don Giovanni (talking statues!), The Elixir of Love (like Spanish Fly, but not!), Alceste (gods being primadonnas!) and The Letter (I have absolutely no idea).

Fasten your seatbelts and find your helmets, we’re going to Santa Fe.

Soon.

Right after I do my homework. (The Letter? Seriously?)