Palm Beach Daily News, p. 4, Friday, November 17, 1989
By Juliette de Marcellus, Daily News Music Critic

Once in a very great while a performance comes along with a magic touch -- an evening which works so well that a bond is immediately created between the members of the audience and utter strangers turn to each other to share the enthusiasm. 

That happened Thursday night at the first of the Palm Beach Opera's Pomeriggio mini-operatic performances scheduled for the Flagler Museum ballroom. 

Everything about this event was good, but probably the touch of talent that put into a special class was the work of PBO's David Gano, who staged the two short operas which made up the program.  The two works were Gian-Carlo Menotti's one-act comedy for two, The Telephone, and Kurt Weill's one-act tragedy, Down in the Valley.

Gano was working with a group of extremely talented young professionals.  Taking the lead roles in both The Telephone and Down in the Valley was soprano Lisa Gibson and PBO's auditions winner baritone Drexel Hallaway.  At the podium as conductor was Steven Guadagno, son of PBO maestro Anton Guadagno.

In The Telephone Lisa Gibson was maddening and feminine as her interminable telephone calls kept Drexel Hallaway's character of Ben from proposing.  Her voice was clear and natural, the difficult pitches and intervals of Menotti's music, secure.  Hallaway, with his rich but flexible baritone, has already proved himself a gifted and versatile performer in many PBO productions.

The second piece was the longer and more demanding of the two and it was here that Gano's ingenious and imaginative directing was particularly noteworthy. Down in the Valley tells the story of a country wooing gone wrong, a knife fight and the expected hanging of the story's hero, Brack Weaver, sung by Hallaway, opposite Lisa Gibson's Jennie.

The chief protagonists would come forward through or around the seated chorus playing their part and disappearing again with the same finely honed balance between natural acting and stylized formality.