'Opera Idiot' Sam Waterston to co-host opera awards
   
   By VERENA DOBNIK
   Associated Press Writer, 11/19/05
   
   NEW YORK -- Emotionally, it's "a direct whammy."
   
   That's how "Law & Order" star Sam Waterston described the power
   of opera, before co-hosting the first Opera News magazine awards.
   
   The awards, to be presented Sunday at Manhattan's Pierre hotel,
   go to three Americans - mezzo-sopranos Susan Graham and Dolora
   Zajick, and conductor James Conlon - plus Spanish tenor Placido
   Domingo and French soprano Regine Crespin.
   
   Presenters include Broadway star Patti Lupone and playwright
   Terrence McNally.
   
   About his first encounter with opera as a teenager, the 65-year-old
   Waterston deadpanned: "For an opera idiot like myself, the first
   impression is that it expresses the size of the feelings in
   people's hearts. That can't be adequately done, except for these
   big guns of voices and a vast orchestra. When it comes to feelings,
   opera is a direct whammy."

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Janos Gereben
www.sfcv.org
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