Patriarchal gasses released; Humans go extinct

You know the world’s gone to shit when opera singers feel like they need to get gastric bypass surgery so they’ll have a better chance at getting parts.

Slimmed-down soprano Deborah Voigt, back at London’s Covent Garden four years after bosses fired her for being too fat, says opera, like other forms of entertainment, is increasingly obsessed with looks.

The 47-year-old American accepted an invitation from the Royal Opera House to return to the same production she was dropped from in 2004 when the casting director felt she would not suit the “little black dress” he envisaged for the part.

The decision sparked heated debate in the world of opera and beyond about the importance of artists’ appearance. Voigt shed 120 pounds with the help of gastric bypass surgery and is back as Ariadne in Richard Strauss’s “Ariadne auf Naxos.”…

Voigt said she was initially upset at being dropped by the Royal Opera House, although she now understood she would have looked out of place in the stylized ‘Ariadne’ production.

Potential perk: “when the fat lady sings” is no longer part of the lexicon.

Potential bummer: Women increasingly starve themselves to infertility and death and the human species rides into extinction. Robots and aliens blame the End of Man on woman.

On a not-unrelated note, has anyone seen The Happening?