Bless Teatro Opera di Roma, one of the few remaining opera houses (In Italy, and not just there) that still insist on casting singers who can actually sing -- and big propsicles to GM Francesco Ernani who still takes the time to cast singers who can sing.
One week from now -- and OC is sorry she'll still be in New York -- Rome will be taken by storm by La Fanciulla del West with Daniela "SuperDany" Dessì (and Janice Baird, Our Queen Janice recently discovered by Met audiences in that emergency-laden Tristan and now back in Rome after her very successful Wozzeck there) as Minnie, Fabio Armiliato as the (eponymous) Dick Johnson, directed by Giancarlo Del Monaco and conducted by Gianluigi Gelmetti.
Love Armiliato's now-thicker beard and Gelmetti's Hitchockian silhouette.