Mezzo-soprano diva Joyce DiDonato last seduced us here as Octavian in Strauss's Rosenkavalier and is returning on Monday night for her first ever San Francisco Performances recital, with pianist John Churchwell. Joyce made headlines over the summer when she fell during a performance of the Barber of Seville at the Royal Opera House, broke her leg and kept on singing. She set such a courageous example that soprano Sondra Radvanovsky got hurt during an attempted purse snatching at the Van Ness Walgreen's so she too could sing with a leg cast. Joyce is out of the cast by now, and well, others have asked her about it, so we know how she was able to finish that performance after the wipe out: "Midwestern work ethic". Good thing she is from Kansas, and not from somewhere with depraved values.

She writes an entertaining blog which we warmly recommend; also, she made news with her, you know, singing. One week after her SF recital, she'll receive an Opera News award, for setting "the standard for Rossini singing today," and pairing "an earthy, brilliantly flexible voice with glamour, intelligence and generosity." She was quite generous with her time and wrote lengthy responses to the questions we emailed below.