Five members of OPERA Iowa, the Des Moines Metro Opera’s educational touring troupe, gave a polished 50-minute performance Friday night for a small but fervent audience of Perry Fine Arts supporters.
The show opened with the famous “Flower Duet” from Delibes’ “Lakmé,” featuring soprano Alyssa Barnes and mezzo-soprano Ariana Warren. Another duet, a love song from Puccini’s “Tosca,” with soprano Gabrielle Clutter paired with tenor Robert Gerold, was similarly excellent.
The baker’s dozen of arias were played by pianist David Mamedov, music director of Opera Iowa. A number of Perry High School students attended the performance, a rarity for Perry Fine Arts productions, and they stayed and spoke afterward with the company, which is one of Iowa’s premier performing arts organizations.
Since its founding in 1990, the OPERA Iowa Educational Touring Troupe has performed for more than 850,00 students and adults across 10 states and in China and Japan. OPERA Iowa is a program of the Indianola-based Des Moines Metro Opera.
The next concert in the Perry Fine Arts series will be the Fourth of July Extravaganza and Ice Cream Social.
