By ANTHONY TOMMASINI [NY Times, 8 January 2006]

By any measure, this is a breakout season for the American baritone Nathan Gunn at the Metropolitan Opera. On Dec. 28, he finished a demanding run of performances as Clyde Griffiths, the recklessly ambitious young protagonist in "An American Tragedy," by Tobias Picker. Winning the lead for this premiere of a major Met commission was an enviable achievement for a baritone whose largest roles at the house had been Guglielmo in Mozart's "Così Fan Tutte" (just two performances in 1997) and Demetrius, one of the four Athenian lovers in Britten's "Midsummer Night's Dream" (a short run in 2002).