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My closest confidants were two extraordinary women: Paula Laurence, Broadway star, diseuse and needle-sharp analyst of the passing scene; and Ann Rogers, Welles’s secretary for 30 years.

So coloratura soprano and contemporary music singer Alison Bell, slinky cabaret diseuse Meow Meow, and bel canto soprano Gabriela Istoc were the women fighting for the affections of Mark Padmore's brutally charismatic Macheath.

Manzel was remarkable with her diseuse way with words and silvery tone, reminiscent at times of Carola Neher, one of the great artists of the period.

Sylvia’s favorites in the company were Madame Perron, the wife of the chanteur grivois, and Blanche, a tall, fair, noisy girl who called herself a diseuse, but who usually sang indecent ballads in a powerful contralto.

Ruth Draper has soundly insisted that she is no mere monologist or diseuse; she describes herself as a character actress.