"The evening was marked by many fine performances. Lidiya Yankovskaya led a fully committed pit orchestra that met the challenges of...

"The role of the "dead man," Joseph DeRocher, was inhabited fully by Michael Mayes, down to the ever-twitching leg that belied his death...

"Pine, who has attracted an enthusiastic following in this area through the years, was in excellent form. Her appearance was made...

"Michael Mayes is dangerously good as he inhabits fully the explosive power of the title character. He has been living inside the skin of...

"I don’t think I’ve ever come away from an opera quite so shaken as I did from Sunday’s Des Moines Metro Opera final staging of David T....

"For classical music fans in Nashville, the last couple of weeks have represented an embarrassment of riches with two wonderful concerts...

"Baritone Michael Mayes as Older Jim sucked the breath out of the room. More than once. Older Jim's character is the most complex, having...

"The cartoonishly masculine, granite-jawed Michael Mayes brought a shyster’s swagger and a robust sound as Escamillo. He and Johnson Cano...

"With her Maggie Smith-like facial expressions, mezzo-soprano Susanne Mentzer could hardly have been better as Augusta, conveying the...

"Musically, the casting of the leads could not have been bettered. Baritone Michael Mayes, in his sixth production of the opera, embodied...