Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Names and faces
■ Soprano Lisette Oropesa was to be the first American to sing a title role in the gal a season-opener at La Scala since Maria Callas in the 1950s. Then Italy’s virus cases surged. An outbreak in both La Scala’s chorus and its orchestra forced the country’s premier opera house to cancel for the first time one of the top events on Europe’s cultural calendar. Oropesa is now set to be one of more than 20 opera stars, among them Placido Domingo, Roberto Alagna and Piotr Beczała, recording arias and duets from the tiered theater for a broadcast event marking the traditional opening today. But there will be no glittering crowds and no celebratory dinner; in fact, the theater in Milan will be mostly empty. By then, Oropesa will be in Barcelona, where she is performing this month. That comes after a whirlwind 2½ days in Milan that include a covid-19 test, a gown fitting at Giorgio Armani for her part in the show, a dress rehearsal and, finally, a performance for a TV camera of an aria she had prepared for her opening night as “Lucia di Lammermoor.” Despite the disappointment of missing her La Scala debut, Oropesa, 37, still hopes to reprise the title role in Donizetti’s opera in Milan once performances can return to Italy’s theaters. “To sing a title in an Italian opera as an American soprano is a pretty big deal,” Oropesa said in a phone interview. And doing so on the La Scala stage for the coveted season-opener is even bigger. Oropesa, a second- generation Cuban-American born in New Orleans, was set to follow in the footsteps of Callas — also a daughter of immigrants — who opened La Scala’s 1955 season singing the title role in Bellini’s “Norma.” “It is a rare thing to get that honor, and it is definitely important to me. It is more than that: To get to sing ‘Lucia di Lammermoor’ in an Italian theater at all is beyond belief. I was really looking forward to that,” Oropesa said. “I hope it happens in the future. If it doesn’t, it wasn’t meant to be.”
■ Netflix said it has “no plans” to add a disclaimer to “The Crown ,” which debuted in 2016 and traces the long reign of Queen Elizabeth II and the intrigue of the royal family. In a statement Saturday, Netflix said it has always presented the drama as just that — a drama. “And we have every confidence our members understand it’s a work of fiction that’s broadly based on historical events,” it said. “As a result we have no plans — and see no need — to add a disclaimer.” Netflix was urged to do so by British Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden, prodded by Charles Spencer, Princess Diana’s brother. “I think it would help ‘The Crown’ an enormous amount if, at the beginning of each episode, it stated that, ‘This isn’t true, but it is based around some real events,’” Spencer told broadcaster ITV. “I worry people do think that this is gospel, and that’s unfair.”