Baritone David Pittsinger etched a sympathetic cameo as Blanche's aristocratic father, and as her brother, tenor Paul Appleby sang with honeyed tone in the scene where he bids Blanche farewell the closest thing this opera has to aloveduet.
The tenor, a journalist who comes to interview the diva, turns out to be a wannabe opera singer himself, and in a fantasy sequence the two tediously execute the loveduet of the diva's opera (about Eleanor of Aquitaine, of all things), a ponderous event with not one scintilla of musical heat or passion (that's the bit that ends with the bells).