artifice

She seemed determined to strip her fame of all artifice while still claiming its pleasures.

Such simplicity in design, along with a winking sense of artifice, is partly what helped turn Kent’s bogeyman into an unlikely gay icon.

But, the artifice of the season finale is aggravating, as are the outrageous sums of money involved.

“We’re creating this veneer, sort of putting on this gauze of artifice so there’s a little bit of safety in there where you’re creating and molding the character you wish to portray,” Turner Ross said.

His somewhat studied performance affirms the admirable seriousness with which he approaches operatic art, and it will be exciting to hear him once he figures out how to conceal the artifice required to make it.