A Little Of The Old In And Out



(image via JH/NYSocialDiary)

In: Renee Fleming. Last night the gorgeous American soprano Renee Fleming -- she gets more fetching with age, no? -- opened The Metropolitan Opera's 125th-anniversary season simulcast in Times Square and live at Lincoln Center to an A-List crowd. Fleming is doing her very best to singlehandedly help revive this woozy art form, injecting fashion -- witness: the Vogue spread -- and glamour (NYTimes: "Fleming’s costumes: Christian Lacroix for 'Traviata,' Karl Lagerfeld for 'Manon' and John Galliano for 'Capriccio.'" And then there was that guest list for last night's fundraiser that raised $6 million. From NYSocialDiary:

"At six, I went over to Lincoln Center to attend the opening night of the 125th Anniversary Season of the Metropolitan Opera .. After the performances, guests moved to the tent in Damrosch Park which was decorated for occasion by David Monn with seating for several hundred. The guest list ran the gamut from Wall Street to Hollywood, from Seventh Avenue to the art world to Martha Stewart (who was joined at table by Renee Fleming). Jane Fonda was there although she left after the first intermission (there were two). Faye Dunaway was at Peggy Siegal’s table ... At Mercedes and Sid Bass’ table there was Barbara Walters, Nancy and Henry Kissinger, Annette and Oscar de la Renta, Lynn Nesbit, Shirley Lord Rosenthal, Elaine and James Wolfensohn, Mr. and Mrs. Joe Volpe, John Richardson, Ralph Rucci and Georgette Mosbacher, Susan Braddock, Frank Langella ..."

The full, opulent list -- Kissinger notwithstanding -- and more on the event here.



Out: Golden Parachutes. For the moment the golden parachute -- those lavish executive compensation packages -- appears to be going the way of the Dodo. Both Presidential candidates of the major political parties -- although on the economy they both sound like Democrats now -- are fighting against the golden parachutes. From the Republican candidate, via Bloomberg:

"Republican presidential candidate John McCain also endorsed the idea of limiting pay for executives of rescued firms, saying taxpayers shouldn't foot the bill for 'golden parachutes' for officers of companies that have crumbled in the financial crisis.

"'The senior executives of any firm that is bailed out by Treasury should not be making more than the highest-paid government official,' McCain said while campaigning in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The president, who makes $400,000 a year, is the highest-paid person in the federal government."

(image via impawards)

In: The War of The Roosevelts. Have you noticed how often FDR and Teddy Roosevelt have been invoked in this Presidential race? And not only by Meet The Press court historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, either! Cold-blooded Imperial apologist Niall Ferguson, on that excellent CNN foreign policy program "GPS with Fareed Zakaria (you must watch this show)," compared Senator Obama to FDR and cast McCain to a soft Roosevelt, a reformer (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment). And yesterday Senator Hillary Clinton courageously called for the creation an FDR-ish regulatory agency to contain the economic crisis (which, we cannot fail to note, would have rendered her politically toxic -- think: "mild Socialism" -- to the very same states Kerry lost in 2004 had she received the nomination).