au fond

“On other days I shrug off this high moral tone. Am I not, au fond, merely a dealer in sordid gossip?”

And with the embattled Mr. Kwiecien before his departure, he brought great heaps of lyricism and pathos to the bromance duet “Au fond du temple saint.”

The theme, and its marketing, placed Paul Cézanne’s 1902-6 watercolor “Baigneuses, la Montagne Ste.-Victoire au Fond,” as the cover lot of the catalog.

In a moving juxtaposition of youthful and mature artistry, tenor Joshua Guerrero melded his sound with Domingo’s during the famously pleasing “Au fond du temple saint” from Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers.”

Lately, however, he’s gotten new vibrancy, and in “Pearl Fishers” he was passionate yet focused, ardently blending with Mr. Kwiecien in their soaring duet, “Au fond du temple saint.”