MORE THAN FASHION PLATES

It is good to see on display at the Parterre and Dress Circle levels of the Met the Tosca costumes of Renata Tebaldi, Eleanor Steber, Zinka Milanov, and Maria Jeritza’s dating back (in Jeritza’s case) to the the 1920s, and to the ’50s for the rest. These serve to debunk the canard that until — (plug in here whichever current skinny diva is being hyped) sopranos were invariably behemoths in muumuus who were lowered by hydraulic machinery onto the stage. But dress forms don’t lie. Here are gorgeous costumes worn by shapely, svelte (not rail thin) diva legends. Even the heftiest of them, Milanov, could not be called obese.