After the matinee on Sunday of Handel’s SEMELE, bizarrely, but not unattractively transported to ancient China, and wonderfully well sung by Jane Archibald and Bill Burden, I had a full day of auditions on Monday.
Among the group of established and distinguished Canadian singers who sang for me, there were also some younger singers who were new to me. Although I didn’t have any specific roles in mind for any of them, it is great to add them to my data base. I never know when one of them might be needed!
It was particularly lovely to hear soprano Nathalie Paulin again. Nathalie has sung in Dallas Opera productions of CARMEN, THE MAGIC FLUTE, THE CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN, MANON and THE MERRY WIDOW, and it was wonderful to hear her again and see how much she has grown as an artist.
Last night I saw a production of Offenbach’s THE TALES OF HOFFMANN, with a mostly Canadian cast headed up by Bass John Relyea, with Erin Wall as “Antonia.” Erin is a former winner of the Dallas Opera Guild Vocal Competition, and some of you may have heard her in Santa Fe as ALL the heroines in HOFFMANN two summers ago. She returns there this year in the title role of Strauss’s ARABELLA, in a new production directed by Tim Albery, who will be in Dallas next season to stage THE ASPERN PAPERS.
The opera world is really quite small and everything and everyone are interconnected!
