MusicWeb International critic Paul Godfrey reviews the Florentine Opera’s world premiere recording of Carlisle Floyd’s Prince of Players:
“The singers… rise splendidly and with relish… Keith Phares is splendid in the central role of Kynaston, whether acting as a female impersonator (with some startling use of falsetto) or as a more conventionally baritone hero. Kate Royal is a marvellous match for him, delivering her soaring lines with passion; Vale Rideout is a suitably epicene, but at the same time touching, Buckingham; Frank Kelley a spiteful and vengeful Sir Charles Sedley (who did indeed historically hire ruffians to beat up the unfortunate actor). Rena Harms is pert and vivacious in the role of Nell Gwynn; and Chad Selton is properly well-mannered and studiously polite, as well as forthright, in his portrayal of the King. … There are a whole raft of singers in smaller roles, many of them drawn from Florentine Opera’s Baumgartner Studio Artist Programme, and none of them let the side down. … the whole opera is given an excellent performance which serves well to represent a work which one would welcome the opportunity to encounter in the theatre. Those who are familiar with Floyd’s 1955 Susannah, still his best-known opera, will find Prince of Players some sixty years later a worthy successor to that score.”
—Paul Corfield Godfrey, MusicWeb International