For about a month now I have been corresponding with a new friend in the Netherlands. There are sixty messages in the folder I named after her—the number will grow before I finish this article—and she probably has at least as many from me. In spite of all the lively conversation, I know little about her. I'm certain of her gender, and I trust that she gave me her real name, but that is about as full of a biographical sketch as I can give you. The rest is covered by impenetrable cyber mist. We don’t talk about each other. Since we discovered we share a diva assoluta, there is nothing else more pressing to talk about than the mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. Never underestimate the bond that two strangers can establish when they discover that in the world of competing paganisms they worship the same divinity. READ MORE