Selling Opera or selling out?

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Several years ago San Franciso Opera did a summer series, the Divas. It was a summer with Carmen, il coronation poppea and one more I can't remember. What I do remember is the picture on the poster was an artistic rendering of the three female characters, which had practically nothing to do with the actual performance and everything to do with creating the idea of 3 sexy women of opera. It doesn't really matter; it got me (and my family) in the door to see two of the three (yes, I took my kids ages 14 & 16)

OperaChic has some startling images by fashion photographer André Rival of Nadja Auermann, the former German supermodel in a variety of poses portraying opera divas to be used in the Deutsche Oper Berlin ad campaign for their 2008/9 season. More of these photos can be found on the Deutsche Oper Berlin press page.

But then again, when has the poster ever really represented images of the production we're hoping to see? It's a poster. It's suppose to get us interested. And if an image of a woman (with "possibly has the longest legs in the world") with her hand up her skirt gets punters through the doors, then the poster has done its job. Although, with the looks of some of the up and coming divas I'm not sure I agree with OperaChic (Supermodels to one day replace fallible opera singers?). Maybe some of these divas will be replacing the models...

Kelly Cae Hogan vs Lilli Lehmann

Then again, maybe not...

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