One Night At The Opera



(image via style)


The Corsair never got into Opera past Mozart, with the possible exception of late Beethoven and, possibly, some Strauss. Too self-indulgent and emotional, that (Averted Gaze). Not unlike Sadie Frost. But JesusChrist there was a tremendous amount of boldfacers at the Opera the other night for the Minghella-clusterfuck. Upper East Side Ladies who Lunch, like Barbara Walters, to Hollywood starlets, like Susan Sarandon and Meg Ryan, to the art world, like Chuck Close and Tim Curran and Salman Rushdie, were all in attendance. We wonder why? It's not as if Minghella is the first film director to do Opera, Ingmar Bergman -- a far greater talent -- took on Mozart's Magic Flute, which is, we cannot fail to note, a far more complicated opera. Anyhoo: Says Style:

"'I'm just starting to get into the opera,' said photographer Cindy Sherman prior to the Metropolitan Opera's premiere of a new production of Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly on Monday night. 'And this seems like a pretty good start." That was putting it mildly. For its season opener, the Met pulled out all the stops, including a live feed of the Anthony Minghella�directed performance on oversize screens in Lincoln Center and Times Square. The theater itself was practically levitating, thanks to the Oscar-winning moviemaker's starry cast of supporters, which included Sir Sean Connery, Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Meg Ryan, Liv Tyler, Naomi Watts, Liev Schreiber and�the most photographed pair of the evening�the on-again Jude Law and Sienna Miller. 'Can I be really annoying and bum a smoke?' Miller later asked a reporter. 'I'm from London. We're not used to this 'no smoking' thing.'"

Really? We'd heard that Jude Law really smoked the Nanny's bum that night (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment).