Whoopi Goldberg "GLEE" Role Mixes Master Class and Leontyne Price

Whoopi Goldberg joined the cast of Fox's Glee for three episodes in May. The Academy Award-winning actress plays the character of Carmen Tibideaux, a theater veteran and professor at The New York Academy of the Dramatic Arts that Rachel (Lea Michele) and Kurt (Chris Colfer) have applied to and must audition for entrance. "Carmen is the Dean of

The original turban diva: Ms. Price

Vocal Performance and Song Interpretation at NYADA and is an extremely accomplished performer and singer. She is generally considered to be admonishing and strict, but kind enough and very open to new students and ideas. Carmen makes her appearance being escorted into the hall by Will Schuester to oversee the auditions of Kurt and Rachel. Backstage, both Rachel and Kurt show extreme anxiety over the knowledge of their NYADA educator as she is revealed to be one of NYADA's most infamous alumni, a profound Broadway and opera performed and the recently appointed Dean of Vocal Performance and Song Interpretation travelling around the country to handpick the students for her own inaugural class." It is obvious from her name (a strange

Leontyne Price with Oscar de la Renta

cross between Bizet's opera Carmen and an real life opera-loving pianist Jean Yves-Thibaudet) to her signature turbans (made popular by soprano Leontyne Price), that her character is meant to invoke memories of Terrance McNally's play Master Class which re-tells the story of Maria Callas at Juilliard in the early 1970s. Although not quite on that level of grandiosity (the role was played by the likes of Zoe Caldwell, Faye Dunaway, Patti Lupone, and most recently, Tyne Daly), Ms. Goldberg does a fine job of portraying a diva with an elevated sense of importance bestowing her wisdom of the human voice and its production. Continue watching for more of her fine character through the end of May. [Source, Source] A few more images of Leontyne Price in turban, after the jump.