East Coast Stompin, Rippin & Rompin! Metropolitan Opera Season Opens! With (Or Without) F.O.R (Friend Of Renee) Alberto Vilar

As Opera Chic is busy with Milan's fashion shows and party party (reports to come soon), tonight begins the Metropolitan Opera's 125th anniversary season, kicking-off with the orgiastic Dionysian Mysteries of Opening Night Gala at 6:30 pm Eastern. Alas, Chicsters, drunken with the joy inspired by the new collections we extend a boisterous in bocca al lupo to all of our fabulous stars!

And we send a shoutout to someone who -- unless an opera-loving judge authorized his trip uptown -- won't be there tonight, and certainly not in his old comfy toasty seat: that old benefactor from Cuba (via bricktown / Newark, NJ) il signor Big Albert Vilar (who is, by the way, just like everybody else, innocent until proven guilty, so let's all wait a sec until we rename him the Raffaello Follieri from Jersey or something O.K.? O.K.).

Of Albertone, la Fleming herself once had to say:

"His generosity is far beyond anything that has preceded it," says diva Renée Fleming, a friend. "Those who were skeptical have been won over."

Or maybe, you know, not.

Whatevs!