The Biddle Boys and Mrs. Soffel – Act I, Sc. 2 (excerpt) – Quintet (“Yearning”)

The Biddle Boys and Mrs. Soffel, a lyric opera in three acts, is a tragic love story set in Pittsburgh at the turn of the last century. In this scene, we meet petty thieves Ed and John Biddle and their accomplice, Jenny, on the back streets of Pittsburgh. Ed dreams of a better life; later, we see that Catherine (Kate) Soffel, the wife of a prison warden, also shares similar dreams.

The singers here are Brent Stater (Ed); Robert Frankenberry (John); Ja-Naé Duane (Jenny); Lorriana Markovic (Kate); and Patricia Donahue (Margaret, Kate’s mother).