Wes Mason takes on Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar

Wes Mason backstage during Streetcar rehearsals

The revised chamber version of André Previn’s opera A Streetcar Named Desire, is opening at the Kentucky Opera tonight. This version, first presented by the Merola Opera in San Francisco last season, was prepared by Peter Grunberg, a music coach at San Francisco Opera and assistant to conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.

Taking on the critical role of Stanley is barihunk Wes Mason, who has been blogging about his preparation for the role, as well as his special relationship with the city of New Orleans, where the opera takes place. You can read those here and here.

He's joined by Maria Kanyova as Blanche, Marco Cammarota as Mitch and Anya Matanovic as Stella. Tickets are available online. 


When Mason wraps up on Sunday, he'll trade Stanley's muscle tee shirt for some board shorts, as he heads to the Hawaii Opera Theatre for Jonathan Dove's Siren Song. The opera focuses on the love letters of a sailor who is writing to a gorgeous model who may not be all she seems. Performance run from March 20-29.

He then heads back to the Fort Worth Opera, where we first discovered him in another new work, Jorge Martín's Before Night Falls. He'll be making his role debut in Ambroise Thomas'Hamlet. Performance are May 2 and May 10 and additional information is available online.