I lived in Temple, TX, from 1982-89, and around 1983 I went to a local concert set up to highlight the operatic couple, he was from Temple, who had performed two major roles in Tremonisha at the Met. I know there was a cast recording of the Met performance because I stumbled upon it a year later when I was in Arizona for a seasonal job. A fellow employee, who lived the rest of the year in Houston, had it and I heard it at her house.

In Temple it was a strange concert, to my northern ears, because most of the people who attended responded to operatic performances as if they were in church and shouted back up to the performers and swayed and clapped and shouted "Amen!" regularly. They were also mostly Texan (as in "southern") African Americans. I went expecting an opera-loving crowd who would listen and clap at the appropriate times. I hadn't been in Texas long, so it was an eye-opener.

SRS