Madelyn Renée 23, created fireworks in January when she made her concert debut at Manhattan's Lincoln Center. Although her soprano part was short, she was sharing the stage and screen (it was carried by PBS) with two of opera's superstars, Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti. "It was an incredible thrill for me," says Madelyn, overwhelmed that they treated her like a colleague. A native of Newton, Mass., Renée attended her first opera at age 6 while living in Paris, where her father, a career diplomat, was a U.S. envoy to NATO. "I was so excited that I stood through the entire performance," she remembers. Music, she decided, would be her career. While majoring in the subject at Cornell, followed by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, she toyed with the idea of Broadway musical comedies. But in the end opera won out. "It is the ultimate musical challenge, involving drama, music and voice." After graduating this month from Juilliard, Madelyn will pursue her professional career with the Pennsylvania Opera Festival. And after that? "I'm aspiring for an international career," the young soprano says firmly. "I hope that I will sing in the great houses all over the world."
Roy Guste Jr., 27, proprietor of the famed New Orleans restaurant Antoine's, is carrying on a family tradition that began in 1840. But the fifth-generation owner has done something his forefathers would never have condoned. He has written Antoine's Restaurant Cookbook, divulging the family's recipes. The first 30,000 copies, at $12.95, sold out locally in three weeks and a new second printing will be distributed nationally. Guste doesn't feel he is a traitor. "There was a time when secrecy was the key to fine foods. But that isn't the case anymore," he maintains. "It's the quality of the ingredients, the preparation, the service and the atmosphere that separate Antoine's fare." Roy Jr. never planned to be a restaurateur. But after trying psychology (at Loyola) and architecture (at Louisiana State), he fetched up at 20 in Paris. Bored, he took a six-week cooking course at Le Cordon Bleu and returned home an enthusiast. Four years later the family put him in charge. Now married to Mimi Carbery, 27, a singer, he decrees one recipe he will never divulge: oysters Rockefeller. The original was created by his great-grandfather, Jules Alicatore. Guste boasts, "I've yet to see them copied anywhere—here or abroad."
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