Music critic for The Washington Post, Anne Midgette, spoke to WQXR's "Arts File" about American opera companies who, despite the recession, have found innovative programs for their audiences. Among the hardy few (this year, Seattle Opera is doing Daron Hagne's Amelia & Minnesota Opera is apparently doing Ricky Ian Gordon's The Garden of the Finzi-Continis), she cites The Fort Worth Opera's highly-anticipated new opera, Before Night Falls, which has been written and composed by Jorge Martin and is based on the autobiography of late Cuban writer, Reinaldo Arenas.
Young American baritone Wes Mason (photo above) will be singing the lead, the same character that put that delicious imported Spanish fillet, Javier Bardem, on the radar in Julian Schnabel's y2k movie of the same name.
You can find as many Before Night Falls videos as your heart desires on the Lone Star Opera website -- interviews with Wes "Javier Bar-damn!" Mason on the opera, as well as round-tables between Fort Worth Opera General Director Darren Woods and composer Jorge Martin.
Now we'd like to kindly request from FWO more media for Ovidio, sung by tenor Jesus Garcia (photo above) and for Victor, sung by Seth Mease Carico (photo below), the hot buttered rolls to Mason's luncheon meat. More like "Before Our Underwear Falls"!