Taking Names

Weighty issues

Months after being notoriously fired from a London opera for being too hefty, world-famous soprano Deborah Voigt is making her debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall and releasing her first solo recording, “Obsessions.”

“The timing of this couldn’t be much better, quite frankly,” Miss Voigt told Associated Press.

“You can’t really buy this kind of publicity, and good, bad or indifferent, there’s the old adage that there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” she said.

“I’ve sort of been asking myself, ’Would you have admitted this or brought attention to it had you realized that you would become international news?’ And I’m not really sure what the answer to that is yet.”

Miss Voigt performs at Carnegie Hall tomorrow night.

Rooney’s Virginia tour

Comic legend Mickey Rooney received a special award at the National D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Va., for his nearly two years of service in Europe during World War II.

“We’re very honored to be here,” the 83-year-old Mr. Rooney said, according to Associated Press. “I’m very proud to have just played a small part with what I did.”

Mr. Rooney, who received a Bronze Star during the war, was in the area to receive the John Payne Lifetime Achievement Award at the Blue-Ridge-Southwest Virginia Vision Film Festival, which honors films made in the state or by Virginians.

Before visiting the D-Day Memorial on Sunday, Mr. Rooney and his wife, Jan, renewed their wedding vows in a private ceremony performed by the Rev. Jerry Falwell. The couple have been married for more than 25 years; she is Mr. Rooney’s eighth wife.

Parton going strong

Dolly Parton, hosting her amusement park’s opening, says she has no plans to retire after nearly four decades in the country music business.

“I’ll be like Bob Hope, touring when I’m 100,” AP quoted Miss Parton as saying. “I love being busy.”

Miss Parton’s activities for opening day at Tennessee’s Dollywood amusement park were characteristically nonstop: She dressed up like Cleopatra for a parade, played the role of a lumberjack to promote a new roller coaster and opened for a traditional Irish dance troupe.

“I will never retire,” Miss Parton said. “I hope to fall dead in the middle of some great event or some great song I’m singing. Then they’ll say, ’Oh, well; she went happy and doing what she loves.’”

The Drug-bournes

It’s all in the family with the Osbournes — it being drugs.

Kelly Osbourne, the middle child, is the latest to check into rehab for addiction to painkillers, notes E! Online.

The 19-year-old, who copped to the problem “after a lot of twisting,” was subsequently driven to Malibu’s Promises rehabilitation center by her younger brother, Jack, who’s about to celebrate a year’s sobriety.

Jack Osbourne, 18, had a stint in a Pasadena center last year for addiction to OxyContin, marijuana and alcohol.

Then, of course, there’s Dad. Ozzy Osbourne is embroiled in a conflict with a doctor he paid $650,000 to help him kick a prescription drug habit, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Mr. Osbourne filed a complaint with California’s medical board against a Beverly Hills physician he claims overprescribed addictive drugs to him.

Reject made good

In pop-music terms, it was sort of like Decca Records turning down the Beatles.

Novelist James Joyce tentatively wrote publisher William Heinemann in September 1905 offering his “Dubliners” novel.

He was right to be tentative, apparently. Mr. Heinemann had just turned down his “Chamber Music” and went on to reject “Dubliners,” too.

The letter goes up for auction tomorrow at Christie’s in London, with a price tag of up to $54,880, according to Reuters News Agency.

Compiled by Scott Galupo from wire reports.