Divamensch

I discovered this on Instagram a few weeks ago and it knocked me out of my chair. Here's Spanish diva Montserrat Caballé singing the end of an aria in Verdi's I Vespri Siciliani. The magic moment happens at 3:20 - - she goes up to a high C, then does a descending chromatic scale from high C down two and a half octaves, down to the F sharp below middle C. And the voice is totally even all the way down. She jokingly called herself The Last Castrato. She wasn't just whistlin' "D

The 1995 Tony for Best Revival went to The Heiress. That play is both a diva and a mensch. The 1947 play by Ruth and Augustus Goetz was an adaptation of the Henry James novella Washington Square. SPOILER ALERT! I encourage you to watch the 1949 movie if you haven't, especially if you have no familiarity with the story. It's one of the greatest Hollywood movies ever, it's one of those movies that gets better every time I see it. The central character is the plain, awkward daug