Anna and Who?

Here's a curiosity:  Mrs. B. indulged herself this morning with the entire dead-tree Sunday Times puffpiece showpiece on Anna ("don't call me a Diva") Netrebko, opening tomorrow night in Anna Bolena at the Met.  It's a can't-miss feelgood for a leisurely breakfast, with a dutiful reference to Netrebko's newish  husband and baby.

But here's the odd part: husband and baby are never named. in  the story.  The baby (his name is Tiago, just turned three) may not have an opinion on the matter but what of the hubby, Erwin Schrott?  Schrott is an opera singer himself; perhaps not quite as big a deal as Netrebko, but still a player in his own right.  Ill Teatro Buce offered up a DVD of Schrott in Figaro a few weeks back: he's an agreeable singer and a wonderful actor--one of the most engagingly funny Figaros I've ever seen (Mrs. B. was dazzled at how different his Figaro was from his Don Giovanni, which she had seen--I did not--a while before).

There is a picture with the Times story of the three of them--Anna, Erwin, Tiago--together, but no cutline: it's pretty obvious this is the boy and this the man in her life, but no suggestion of who exactly.


An oversight?  Mrs. B. thinks not: she's betting it was Erwin's decision--that he doesn't wan't to be identified merely as Anna's husband. Plausible, but wait--same story, same picture, in the online version; this time Schrott and Tiago do get named, albeit only in tiny print in a cutline (same picture).  So, am I making a lot out of nothing?  Leaving off the cutline was just an editorial error?  Or was the error the other way round--was it putting in the cutline that was the mistake?

More Opera:  Walter Russell Mead offers a partly ridiculous, partly charming, salute to the Met season here.  Ridiculous in the degree to which it goes all harrumphy on us, as if he were the headmaster lecturing a troop of not-fully-civilized sixth formers.  As to substance, I think he goes a bit overboard in his enthusiasm for Milan and Vienna but in general, I agree with just about every word he says (for added amusement, don't overlook the comment by WigWag who tweaks the nose of his Meadocity for some previous unkind remarks about Queens).