“Verismo,” Renée Fleming informs us, “means truth.”

What better demonstration of this artist’s dedication to the real-life (not to say the mundane) than her apparent decision to fire her stylist and hairdresser in hopes of achieving a greater naturalism of appearance. Indeed, La Cieca would say that Fleming has succeeded: at least as documented in this video, she looks as if she might have inspired dear Lady Bracknell‘s celebrated quotation.* 

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* “Pretty child! your dress is sadly simple, and your hair seems almost as Nature might have left it.”

Though, on the other hand, as looks go, there is “natural” and there is “building materials.”

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