The arts struggle for funds in Miami. Good theaters have closed.  Even the superlative Miami City Ballet had to part with their beloved Villella over finances. We Miamians are notoriously cheap when not buying bottles at LIV. The Florida Grand Opera is happy, then, to enjoy support from a wealthy group of donors called the Young Patronesses, half of which term requires some imagination, because while we all owe a great debt to their generous patronage, any truly impartial observer of the committee must ask himself whether “young” is not a touch hopeful.

The FGO does good work, though – in particular with its efforts to find and nurture young talent.  Sometimes you’re in for a treat, as when Nadine Sierra, then about 20, sang Rigoletto’s Gilda with a subtlety of phrasing and a truth in performance you’d perhaps expect of a Grande Dame at the apogee of a storied career. Still other times, the FGO will hire out the stage: a few years ago, Placido Domingo brought a troupe from Spain to perform a moving and funny Luisa Fernanda we still have not forgotten. Good acting is rare in opera; good comedy, rarer still.  Asking a soprano to tell a joke is almost a strict confusion of genre, like asking a duck to don a tutu and dance Giselle (we learned this the hard way during Cosí fan tutte). But Luisa Fernanda was extraordinary, and we were glad to welcome Domingo, though we had to explain to several abuelitas in the third row that he would not, in fact, be taking requests for Solamente Una Vez.