Stephen Dickson "Pagliacci", and "Faust". In 1987, he sang Papageno in the NYCO's nationally televised production of "The Magic Flute" with Jon Garrison as Tamino. In the early 1980s, Dickson's career began to take off with a series of important engagements with America's top opera companies. He made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera on November 24, 1981, as Papageno to the Pamina of Gail Robinson, Tamino of David Kuebler, and Queen of the Night of Zdzisława Donat. He later returned to the Met to sing Harlekin in "Ariadne auf Naxos" annually from 1985 to 1988 with casts that notably included Jessye
Agrippina (opera) hypocritical; Claudius is pompous, complacent, and something of a buffoon, while Poppaea, the first of Handel's sex kittens, is also a liar and a flirt. The freedmen Pallas and Narcissus are self-serving and salacious. All, however, have some redeeming features, and all have arias that express genuine emotion. The situations in which they find themselves are sometimes comic, but never farcical—like Mozart in the Da Ponte operas, Handel avoids laughing at his characters. In "Agrippina" the "da capo" aria is the musical form used to illustrate character in the context of the opera. The first four arias of the work