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MUSIC: Falsettos and Falsies

The somber judgment scene from Aida unfolds. Portraying the Egyptian princess Amneris is a singer identified in the program as "Carmelita Della Vaca- Browne," a burly Puerto Rican ex-soprano whose voice (since she gave birth to triplets) has darkened to a take-no-prisoners mezzo. In the role of the doomed warrior Radames, all-American tenor "Tex Stolto" can't seem to resist handing out 8-by-10 glossies of himself. And as Ramfis, the high priest, Russian bass "Boris Pistoff" doffs his headdress to reveal himself as a Conehead.

This is Aida? Well, yes -- as staged by a New York-based all-male company called La Gran...

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
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