Return of the Little Black Dress

Back in 2004, the soprano Deborah Voigt was fired from a production of Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos because she was too big, and the director decided she would not look right in the little black dress which would have been her character’s costume.   Ariadne is a woman from Greek muythology abandoned on the island of Naxos, and only in opera would she wear a little back dress while moping for Theseus. (Not to worry–Bacchus comes along and everything turns out okay.)  Of course, only in opera would she be accompanied by a commedia dell arte troop and actually be not Ariadne but an eighteenth century diva singing in an Austrian aristrocrat’s private theater–but that part you have to blame on Strauss.  The little black dress can be blamed only on Covent Garden.

So for that opera, the fat lady didn’t sing, because she got fired.  But the opera did end, eventually.

There was a hullabaloo in the press and online about the whole affair, but Ms. Voigt was motivated to get gastric bypass surgery and stop being the fat lady.  So now she’s returning to Covent Garden, in the same role, and wearing the same dress. 

Which allowed her and her staff to make the following video for posting to YouTube: Return of the Little Black Dress.

The credits, btw, list a personal assistant to the Little Black Dress.

A few days ago, I would have linked to a story with more details about Ms. Voigt, but the story is a wholly owned subsidiary of a news organization which shares the initials of Animal Planet, so no background link for the story.

 

Tags: Deborah Voigt, humor, opera, return of the Little Black Dress