~The "Glass Shatterers!" series focuses on sopranos who sustain High F, or sing higher.

THE SONGBIRD: Elizabeth Vidal was born in Nice in 1960. She entered École de Chant at the Paris Grand Opera and studied with Elisabeth Grümmer. In 1985, Vidal made her debut at Opera Lyon and appeared at the Aix-en-Provence. She created a sensation in 1990 singing the demanding lead role in Auber's "Manon Lescaut" at the Opera-Comique in Paris and has since appeared in leading coloratura roles in many European opera houses and concert halls -- with a specialty for unearthing long-forgotten works from French composers (especially if they wrote something for a high soprano, of course, which they often did).

THE MUSIC: "Die Fledermaus" is the most performed operetta in the world to the point of essentially coming to define the genre. It premiered in Vienna in 1874, composed by Johann Strauss II to a libretto by Karl Haffner and Richard Genée that was in turn based on a French adaptation of an earlier German play. The work has two principal soprano roles: Rosalinde, a married woman of means, and her maid Adele. Adele is a coloratura soubrette with two arias (in the operetta "couplets" form). Her most famous comes in Act Two, when she attends a ball disguised as an actress. After she is almost recognized, she reacts incredulously and sings the "laughing song" aria to the party goers to illustrate how amusing it is that someone might mistake her for a maid. It's not the first or last time a composer used coloratura figures to convey laughter, but it is one of the most clever and well-executed -- and surely the most ubiquitous!

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