Yvonne Kenny when she replaced, with only four days' notice, the soprano scheduled to sing in an Opera Rara concert performance of Donizetti's "Rosmonda d'Inghilterra" at the Queen Elizabeth Hall. It was a triumph and the virtually unknown Kenny became an overnight star. She made her debut at the Royal Opera House the following year, in the premiere of Hans Werner Henze's "We Come to the River", later singing in Handel operas such as: "Semele", "Alcina", "Giulio Cesare", and such Mozart operas as: "Idomeneo", "Mitridate, re di Ponto", "La clemenza di Tito", "The Abduction from the Seraglio", "The Magic Flute". She also
Willoughby Weiss di Lammermoor" (with Dorus Gras and Henry Whitworth), conducted by Hector Berlioz, in Louis Antoine Jullien's company: soon afterwards Reeves and Weiss sang together again in the premiere of Balfe's opera "Maid of Honour". In 1854 he set Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem ""The Village Blacksmith"" to music, from which he made a considerable fortune. In that year Weiss was in Jarrett's company at Drury Lane, with Reeves, Agnes Büry, Mme Rudersdorff, Louisa Pyne and others, in a season including "Lucia", "Fra Diavolo", "La sonnambula", "Il Seraglio" and "Masaniello". On New Year's Day 1856, with Reeves, Novello and Lewis Thomas, he