Deborah Voigt Faces the Little Black Dress Once More

Today's Times gives an entertaining account of soprano Deborah Voigt's return to Covent Garden next week to sing the lead in Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, the production she was fired from four years ago when she was deemed too fat to fit into the character's costume: a little black dress. To celebrate her return, Voigt — whose firing resonated with opera fans upset with a perceived trend of singers' looks taking precedence over vocal skills — filmed this YouTube video, in which a little black dress (with British accent, natch) begs Voigt's forgiveness. It's pretty cute, and Voigt's comic timing is good enough to almost make us forget that she's only being given the role now that gastric bypass surgery, diet, and exercise has her down from a size 30 to a size 14.

Second Date With a Little Black Dress [NYT]