Philip wrote:

>I have videotaped a performance where the delectable Maria Ewing actually
>takes off all seven veils, never seen that done before by an opera star....

Regarding Ewing's Salome: Ragnar Ulfung, the Herod in the 1989 Los Angeles
Opera production, said that by the sixth veil the auditorium looked like a
fly's eye, with 3300 pairs of binoculars trained upon her brightly backlit
form.  (Though I conducted those performances, I never got to actually see
the event.  She didn't do the full monty at the dress rehearsals, and I
feared that if I even so much as glanced at the stage at that moment during
a performance, I'd never, ever get the orchestra's attention back.  They
threatened to install periscopes...) Catherine Malfitano's video, with
Sinopoli, repeats Maria's feat.

Randall Behr