OK, a little update here.

Virginia Opera did a TROVATORE last fall with an outstanding tenor and baritone: respectively, Gustavo Lopez-Manzitti and Nmon Ford. (Latter's first name is pronounced "ENmon.")

Manzitti is a true spinto tenor; he had done an excellent Turiddu and Canio for us in Virginia the previous season. Tall, too; not bad-looking, and a passable actor. In a word, da bomb.

Ford was our Kurwenal in the (Virginia premiere of!) TRISTAN about seven years ago. Best I ever saw -- wonderful acting, too: you sensed his joy when Tristan awoke -- but I wondered whether he had a Verdi style. Well, in the years since that TRISTAN, he's developed one. He has to work at it -- his relief after his gorgeously sung Il balen was palpable -- but gorgeous it was. Throw in the gangsta look, and you had one helluva a Verdi villain. (Is DiLuna a villain anyway? My wife always says Leonora is a loser with no sense of who's the right guy to pick....)