On Monday night, the Metropolitan Opera kicked off its 2008-2009 season with a special gala performance which spotlighted the great singer Renee Fleming. Among the many luminaries who attended was two-time Oscar winner and Broadway veteran Jane Fonda.
Fellow Oscar winner and stage star Faye Dunaway is no stranger to opera, having played the diva Maria Callas in Terrence McNally’s play Master Class.
Another Oscar winner, Helen Mirren — who will return to the London stage next year in a new production of Phaedra — looked dazzling on the red carpet.
John Lithgow attended the event on his night off from the Broadway revival of All My Sons, in which he plays patriarch Joe Keller.
Christine Baranski, still earning loud laughs nightly as the harried housekeeper in Broadway’s Boeing-Boeing, brought daughter Isabel Cowles to the gala.
Here’s the multi-talented Kathleen Marshall, currently represented on Broadway by the hit revival of Grease.
Three-time Emmy Award winner and Broadway favorite Blythe Danner was also on hand for the big event.
Here’s one of the country’s most talented couples, actress Katherine Borowitz and husband John Turturro, who currently appears on the big screen in Spike Lee’s Miracle at St. Anna’s.
The lovely Julianna Margulies, who appeared on Broadway in Festen, arrived with handsome husband Keith Lieberthal.
Good pals Chandler Williams and Lily Rabe co-starred in the Roundabout Theatre’s revival of Crimes of the Heart.
The wonderful Parker Posey will return to the big screen in the upcoming comedy Spring Breakdown.
Not surprisingly, media mogul Martha Stewart — about to be semi-lovingly skewered by daughter Alexis in the TV show Whatever, Martha! — looked classy and elegant.
Singer Rufus Wainwright has written his own opera (in French), Prima Donna, but turned down the opportunity to have the Met perform it in English!
Here’s the adorable Taylor Momsen, who co-stars as Jenny in the hit TV series Gossip Girl.
Finally, here’s the divine Barbara Walters, co-host of ABC’s The View and one of television’s most important women.
