Ailyn Pérez has been on a roll in Texas. For the Dallas Opera, she created the role of Tatyana Bakst in the world premiere of Terrence McNally and Jake Heggie’s Great Scott (my review here). Tatyana is young, clueless and voracious soprano with her eye on the shortest possible track to stardom—and the goods to make it. My rollicking interview with her and another outstanding cast member, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo, is here.
From that comic characterization, she made a sharp about face in Houston portraying the opposite: a woman to whom dignity is everything, the heartbroken Countess in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. She was marvelous; my review is here. Now, she returns to Dallas to play the leading role in Massenet’s gorgeously romantic masterpiece, Manon. Again she plays a young girl with lots of determination who is out on her own. Manon wants true love but wants a luxurious lifestyle more. What to do, what to do?
Read the entire feature by at Theater Jones.