Keri Alkema, the only returning singer in the cast (she was an impressive Donna Elvira in the company's "Don Giovanni" in 2009) brings a burnished intensity and clean coloratura to Amaltea, Faraone's wife and an Israelite sympathizer.
Lee's army was on the march north to the fateful battle of Gettysburg, President Lincoln wrote a letter commenting on the arrest of a leading Confederate sympathizer legislator (or "Copperheads" as they were then known), U.S. Rep. Clement L. Valladigham (Democrat of Ohio).