Moving inside to the beautiful interior of the building, it was gratifying to see a packed house. This speaks well of Mr. Hanthorn’s accomplishments since his arrival just a few years ago as the Director.

The staging was majestic and made us feel as though we were truly on an excursion into Egypt’s past. The bumping and thumping while the curtain was momentarily down at various points of the evening was signal for seventh inning stretching to get kinks out of backs.

During the initial segment, Mr. Levi had the volume set entirely too high for a blending of voice and orchestra. This somewhat muted the early performance of Mr Palombi as Radames and Ms Bishop as Amneris. However, the booming tone of Mr Robinson (Ramfis) as well as his stage presence eerily brought focus to the cast and storyline.

Later in the production, Ms Thomas a hometown success subbing for the ill Ms Williams as Aida, isolated in front of the curtain, showed off her well known talents. From this point forward all of the cast improved tremendously and kept us glued to our seats.

Mr Palombi and Ms Thomas blended their talents to bring the love story to a somewhat morbid but successful close.

We thoroughly enjoyed the evening and highly recommend it to others such as ourselves who only dabble in the opera.