MATTHEW ROSE as Peneios

British bass Matthew Rose made his Seattle Opera debut singing Peneios, Daphne’s fisherman/river-god father, in DAPHNE. Welcoming all the local shepherds to the Feast of Dionysus he and his wife Gaea are hosting, Peneios draws their attention to a dazzling mountain sunset: PENEIOS: See that view? A precious premonition: Look up, all you shepherds, to the heights of Olympus! Clouds tinged with a gleam of red atop the mountain peak. There, the sun has not yet disappeared; Phoebus Apollo has not abandoned us. GAEA: What heights are you wanting to climb? Forever you are dreaming... PENEIOS: Mother, I see him—I see his face. They grow tired of their home up on that lonely height. No, they’re coming home, back to the huts of their abandoned brothers. God was I, once; a god like them. David Afkham conducted Melody Wilson as Gaea and the chorus and orchestra of Seattle Opera. Photo by Sunny Martini.