Opera Singer Hospitalized for Scenery Ingestion

Operatic sensation Graziella Balduccini-Jones was rushed to a local hospital late Thursday night after becoming ill during a performance at the Munich Opera Festival. A festival spokesperson declined to provide further details, but sources close to the festival reported that the beloved soprano was taken ill midway through a performance of Verdi's Aida, in which she was singing the title role, after eating part of the sets. She finished the performance but collapsed during the curtain calls and was taken to the hospital, where she is said to be in stable condition.

"I've been waiting for this to happen for years," said the American mezzo Ashley Duncan, a friend of Balduccini-Jones. "I keep telling Graziella, stop chewing the scenery, because one of these days you're going to swallow something, but does she listen?" Duncan explained, however, that the diva does not have an eating disorder. "She never does anything like this outside the opera house, except once she bit a piece out of a piano during a song recital. It's not a food issue, it's just that she gets so caught up in the drama that she starts gnawing on bits of the sets and props. Once she chewed up her whole fan in Tosca and stuck it on the bottom of Scarpia's seat. When he pulled up his chair to write out the safe-conduct for Tosca and Mario, his hand went right into the middle of it. I thought he was going to stab her instead of the other way around."

Balduccini-Jones, a charismatic singer with a powerful but limpidly beautiful voice, is immensely popular but also controversial. Fans adore her instantly recognizable sound and the emotional truth of her acting, but detractors complain that she is a lazy singer who doesn't bother to fully master her challenging repertoire and instead coasts on her glamorous looks and gimmicky acting. "I'm not at all surprised that this happened, frankly," said the Icelandic tenor Ketill Hallgeirsson, who famously refused to work with Balduccini-Jones ever again after a production of Puccini's La bohème at the La Fenice opera house in Venice in 2007. "Every production I was in with her, the sets would be in tatters after opening night. When we were in Bohème, she chewed up the table and spit it out, and then climbed halfway up the wall to get the paper moon in the window and put it in her mouth. I was trying to sing my aria, and everybody was watching her antics. I hope this is a wake-up call for her."

An administrator at New York's Metropolitan Opera, who asked not to be identified, confirmed that Balduccini-Jones's scenery chewing has been an issue there. "Ever wonder why we always schedule her for the first three performances and then bring in the second cast? That's all we can afford to give her, even though she sells out the house for every performance. It's especially bad when she's singing the title role in [Puccini's] Madama Butterfly. We decided not to hire her for the current production [by Anthony Minghella] because we use a puppet to represent Butterfly's infant son. We're afraid of the reaction from our subscribers if they see the heroine onstage eating her child."

For her loyal fans, however, Balduccini-Jones can do no wrong. "No other singer has ever moved me like Graziella," enthused Joseph Pines, a social studies teacher from Bridgeport, Connecticut, who was present at Thursday night's performance. "The Graziella haters will be out in full force, but they just can't deal with the totality of the Graziella experience. She gives 120 percent every time. She insisted on finishing the performance on Thursday even though she was terribly ill, because she wouldn't let her fans down. I'm praying she makes a full recovery."

It is unclear which part of the scenery caused the diva's illness, but attendees at the final performance of Aida on Saturday evening (in which the English soprano Leslie Smith sang the title role) reported that the Nile river in Act 3 had a "patched-together" look.

Spice Up Your Remodel!

"Architecturally Unique, 1927 Townhome in Historic Anhalt Building....This 2 Story Condo Was Fully Updated In 2007 With Remodeled Kitchen And Bath, Refinished Hardwoods...Etc. Whilst Marinating All Architectural Relevance."  — Condo listing, Seattle, current

Anhalt Marinade

Prep time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

1 clawfoot tub, coarsely chopped
crown moldings, about two standard walls' worth, paint peeled, minced
2 leaded-glass cabinet doors, trimmed and glass crushed
1 French door, chopped, or pulsed in food processor in batches
2 gallons olive oil
1 gallon white wine vinegar
1 bay leaf
Salt and pepper

1. Combine tub, moldings, leaded glass, and French door in a large bowl (I use my backyard swimming pool—don't forget to drain it first!). Add olive oil and vinegar and stir with a large wooden spoon (oars are great for this). Add the bay leaf, and season to taste with salt and pepper.

2. Spread all over walls, floor, and ceiling of apartment. Rub into windows and radiator covers. Let sit at room temperature for at least two hours, or overnight.

3. Renovate apartment according to your favorite recipe.

Makes enough for one average one-bedroom apartment. Recipe can be doubled.

Advance preparation: Marinade may be made up to three days ahead. Cover with a tarpaulin until ready to use.

Note: The ad quoted at top is real, though it does not refer to the building pictured. Don't try this at home.

A New Jewish TV Station for Seattle

A television station entirely devoted to Jewish programming is set to hit the airwaves next month. The station, KVEY, will run on channel 180 and can be picked up on a weak signal throughout the Seattle area.

"So it's a weak signal, what do you want from me?" said Ruth Mecklenberg, KVEY's executive producer. "Turn it up if you can't hear. So what if it has a bit of a crackle to it? It's nostalgic. Like talking to your great-aunt Alice across the country in the seventies."

The station will offer a mixture of music, talk, and educational programming. Cooking shows will air every day of the week (except Saturday, when the station will be dark), with highlights including "Schmaltz It Up with Tante Leah" (Tuesdays at 3 p.m.), "Babka with Bubbe" (Thursdays at noon), and a challah-baking tutorial on Fridays beginning at 10 a.m. and interrupting afternoon programs at intervals to cover the bread's rises, shaping, and baking. "That way the home baker can follow along and watch the progress in real time," explained the show's host, Ethel Blixstein.

Other highlights include a game show called "The Biggest Shlimazel" (Wednesdays at 8 p.m.) and a dance competition hosted by DJ Shlomo "the Bear" Shlomovitz and entitled "So You Think You Can Dance the Hora?" (Mondays at 9 p.m.). The full schedule is not yet set.

"What do you mean the schedule isn't set?" said Mrs. Mecklenberg. "It's been all ready for months, what are you talking about? Besides, is it so terrible if we don't have every single program worked out? You think you can do better, go make your own Jewish TV station."

It is unclear whether the Seattle Jewish community will provide a strong enough market to support the station. "Oy, what do we need Jewish TV for?" asked Moshe Friedman, 86, who spoke to a reporter at the Stroum Jewish Community Center on Mercer Island. "You can't even get a decent bagel in this town. They should learn to make bagels instead of wasting time on TV shows." Mr. Friedman walked out of the room, crumpling the paper plate from his bagel with lox shmear and continuing to mutter about bagels.

Others were more upbeat. "I can't wait to finally learn how to make kreplach!" enthused Miriam Rubin, 42, of Wallingford. "I'm still kicking myself that I didn't get my bubbe's recipe before she passed. Hers were the best!" Ms. Rubin paused to consider. "And cholent. I'm dying to make cholent, but it seems so intimidating, you know?"

"I'm telling you, people are beating the door down for KVEY," said Mrs. Mecklenberg. "It'll be the best thing since knish mixes. Do you know how hard I used to work making knishes? You don't want to know how hard."

KVEY launches on Thursday, July 1, at 8 p.m., with the first episode of its weekly reality show, "Who Wants to Marry a Nice Jewish Boy?"

Surfing with Style

Excerpts from the new section on Internet style in the Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition (forthcoming on August 1):

8.38 Acronyms. Many weblogs and social networking groups employ acronyms for common expressions, such as LOL, OMG (and its variant ZOMG), etc. No settled style has emerged for rendering acronyms, but Chicago recommends using all capital letters rather than all lowercase (but see 8.39). A mix of capital and lowercase letters should be avoided at all costs.

8.39 Capitalization and lowercase. Whether to use sentence-style capitalization or only lowercase in online discourse is a decision to be made by the individual writer. If lowercase style is chosen, it should be implemented consistently, including for acronyms (cf. 8.38). Always avoid using all capital letters, a style often referred to as "shouting."

8.40 Emphasis. When typing in plain text, where italics are not an option, use asterisks surrounding the emphasized text. The use of multiple asterisks for additional stress is not recommended.

    Mr. Jones said the necklace was *especially* becoming.

8.41 An alternative method. Rendering a word or words in all capital letters is another common method of indicating emphasis. Chicago recommends avoiding this method for long phrases.

    "Chocolate and cilantro should NEVER be combined," he cautioned.

8.42 @ symbol. Users of the social networking tool Twitter employ the "at" symbol (@) before a fellow Twitter user's id to communicate directly with that person and to enable other Twitter users to connect more easily with the person being addressed. There should be no space between the symbol and the user's id.

    @goofus7359

Use of this symbol is becoming prevalent on other platforms, such as on Facebook or in weblog comment threads, but Chicago does not recommend this practice as it serves no practical purpose.

8.43 Abbreviations. Shortened forms of words or the replacement of words by numbers and symbols may be employed in casual contexts. This departure from Chicago's former style reflects the fact that these forms have achieved the status of settled usage. Punctuation is typically dropped in these contexts, and the abbreviated forms are often attached to the previous word.

    Give me ur# i have sthg 4u

BP Apologizes for Apology for Oil Spill

Responding to widespread public outrage over a recent advertising campaign in which it apologized for the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, British Petroleum today issued a statement apologizing for the original ads.

"British Petroleum deeply regrets its error in apologizing for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill," said Sandy Logan, a spokesperson for the company. "It has been our goal and desire from the beginning to make amends, and we wanted people to know that. Clearly, we did not express ourselves well, and we would like to extend our sincere apologies to those who were upset or afflicted by our apology." BP's CEO, Tony Hayward, has also told reporters, "This apology was a tragic misstep that never should have happened. We will do everything we can so this never happens again."

The company submitted its original apology in the form of a commercial featuring Hayward that appeared on national television beginning last week, and also ran advertisements in major newspapers. Phrases in the ads such as "We will make this right" caused widespread anger and mockery. Environmentalists and other critics have pointed out that the damage to wildlife and to the livelihoods of fishermen and small-business owners along the Gulf coast is already done. "What are they going to make right?" asked Andrew Benedict, a fisherman in Venice, Louisiana. "Can they bring the fish and the birds back to life?"

"British Petroleum is committed to cleaning up this spill," said Logan. However, "out of consideration for people's feelings, we will try to downplay this commitment as much as possible." If necessary, she added, the company will even fight attempts to hold it financially accountable for the damage, "just so people don't have to see how sorry we are."

In the meantime, Logan said, the company has taken out full-page ads in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, scheduled to run tomorrow. "These ads express 'our sincere apology for the pain and suffering we have caused by apologizing. We have learned from this difficult experience, and we will make this right.' Oops, did that make it into the final version? Excuse me, I have to make some calls."