Robert K. Meya

Robert K. Meya, the fourth General Director of the Santa Fe Opera, assumed the helm of the organization in 2018 following a seven-year tenure as Director of External Affairs. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Meya to cancel the Santa Fe Opera’s 64th Festival Season, marking the first summer in the company’s history without live opera. In the face of these unprecedented times, Meya led SFO through the 2020 fiscal year with a balanced budget and assembled a team of experts in epidemiology, sanitization and public health to plan for a safe and successful reopening in 2021.

On July 10, 2021, the Santa Fe Opera became one of the first opera companies in the world to return to performances in its own venue. Under Meya’s leadership, the Santa Fe Opera presented 30 mainstage performances, held hundreds of rehearsals and employed over 500 staff without a single postponement or cancellation in its 64th Festival Season. Meya concluded the 2021 Reopening Season with ticket sales surpassing projections by over 100% and $11.8 million in fundraising, the highest level in company history.

With the support of the Board of Directors, dedicated staff, generous patrons, and federal aid, the Santa Fe Opera met the pandemic crisis with strength and resilience. While mainstage performances were halted due to the pandemic, Meya initiated the launch of the company’s first-ever digital performance series, Songs from the Santa Fe Opera.

Meya remained committed to digital programming and increasing the opera’s ability to reach new and diverse audiences, and in 2021 debuted nightly simulcasts of the opera’s mainstage performances to state-of-the-art LED walls in the parking lot, offering audiences a more accessible and socially distanced option for attending the opera. In the same summer, the opera brought the LED screens to public parks in Santa Fe and Albuquerque and presented free screenings of all four 2021 Season productions and celebrated its first ever broadcasts on public radio.

In 2019, Meya successfully concluded the “Setting the Stage” Campaign raising over $45 million and funding capital improvements and renovations to the backstage and front-of-house areas – creating a state-of-the-art environment for Santa Fe Opera patrons, artists and employees.

Previously, Meya served as the Director of Development of New York City Opera, Executive Director of the White Nights Foundation of America, Acting Director of Major and Planned Giving for the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Associate Director of Individual Giving for San Francisco Opera.

A native of Connecticut, Meya earned a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service Degree from Georgetown University with a concentration in International Relations, Law, and Organization and a Masters of Arts Management Degree from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a lifelong devotee of classical music and is a trained classical pianist. He lives in Santa Fe with his wife, soprano Amanda Echalaz, and their two children.