Ducci-D’oh!

An art history professor is claiming that “one of the great single acquisitions of the last half century” — the one the Met just acquired for like $50 bazillion — is actually a nineteenth-century fraud:

A painting the Metropolitan Museum of Art bought for more than $45 million and hailed as a 14th century masterpiece is a fake, according to a leading New York authority.

The “Madonna and Child” the museum attributes to Renaissance artist Duccio di Buoninsegna was really painted in the 19th century, said James Beck, an art history professor at Columbia University.

The 8-inch-by-11-inch tempera and gold on wood panel was the most expensive single object The Met ever bought when it acquired it in November 2004.

“If I’m right, this is $50 million in . . . money down the tube,” Beck told The Post. “And I’m right. It’s incontestable.”

He ridiculed its “low quality” and said it wasn’t “even a good forgery.”

There are no documents proving its ownership before around 1904, and Beck believes it was painted “in about the 1880s.”

Beck said he began to have doubts about the work six months ago and when he approached The Met, where officials expressed confidence the work is genuine.

There was no immediate response yesterday from the museum or Christie’s, which handled the sale for a Belgian family.

But Met curator Keith Christiansen told The Times of London, “There is no reason to doubt the period and the authenticity of the picture.”

Beck said the best proof that it’s a fake is the way it shows the Madonna and child behind a parapet, an artistic use of space and planes that only came later in the Renaissance. He rejected Christiansen’s claim that the work is “the first illusionistic parapet in European art.”

Refresher course: The Missing Madonna: The story behind the Met’s most expensive acquisition (New Yorker, July 11, 2005).

Read: This Is Sure To Give Us At Least Several Solid Hits In The Times Arts Pages And — God Willing — The Editorial Pages Of The Post

The controversial play “My Name is Rachel Corrie” has found a new theater:

After an Off Broadway production was derailed, resulting in a theatrical uproar, “My Name Is Rachel Corrie,” the solo show about an American demonstrator for Palestinian rights who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in the Gaza Strip, has found another New York theater.

Pam Pariseau and Dena Hammerstein, partners in James Hammerstein Productions, are bringing the play, critically acclaimed in London, to the Minetta Lane Theater in Greenwich Village. Previews are to begin on Oct. 5, with an opening scheduled for Oct. 15. The play is to run for 48 performances, closing on Nov. 19.

“We both saw the play and both responded to it very strongly,” Ms. Hammerstein said in a telephone interview yesterday. “We identified with the material in terms of being mothers and were struck by the production and the theatricality.”

Ms. Hammerstein, a daughter-in-law of Oscar Hammerstein II, is a longtime friend of the actor Alan Rickman, who created the play with Katharine Viner, an editor for The Guardian, the London newspaper. They put the play together from Ms. Corrie’s journal entries and e-mail messages before her death in March 2003. It ran for two seasons at the Royal Court Theater in London.

“I’m just really looking forward to engaging people on it, an engagement which can only happen, obviously, if the play is on,” Ms. Viner said.

Samuel French, You Bastard!

A Bronx high school has been forced to cancel its spring performance of the musical “Chicago” because the piece’s publisher is worried consumers will somehow mistake a high school production for Broadway . . . which pretty much says it all about Broadway:

The news shattered more than 75 students and teachers at Herbert H. Lehman High School who had worked hard on the amateur production for three months and planned to perform Thursday — at $7 a ticket.

“We were all putting everything we had into it, and for someone to tell me I can’t do this is like someone telling me I can’t breathe or I can’t walk,” said Justin Valentin, a 17-year-old senior slated to star as lawyer Billy Flynn.

“For months I’ve gone to bed every night singing the songs,” he added.

The bad news came Friday when the East Tremont school was slammed with a severe “cease and desist” order from Samuel French Inc., representing the authors of the play and citing copyright law and licensing agreements.

French officials said school principal Robert Leder failed to ask for permission to put on the smash show.

But even if he had, it would not have been granted because the school is too close to the Ambassador Theatre, where the show is playing on Broadway at up to $235 a ticket.

“I’m sorry,” said “Chicago” producer Barry Weissler. “I feel terrible for the kids, but I have an agreement with the Ambassador Theatre that does not allow a performance within 75 miles of New York City.”

. . .

The cease-and-desist order threatened “severe penalties” — including large monetary damages for the student performers, their parents and the public school if rehearsals continued and a performance was held.

The letter was faxed to Principal Robert Leder after someone tipped off Samuel French.

“I’m partly guilty in that I never, ever thought of asking for permission — never ever,” said Leder, adding that he’s been principal for 27 years and put on a show annually.

He said he was faced with the threat of $250,000 in damages.

Brad Lohrenz, the Samuel French official who sent the letter, told The News, “Nobody is trying to be mean and everyone at the school was very nice, but there are restrictions.”

Theatre should be free, motherfuckers!

Rudy! Rudy!

The Times profiles an opera singer whose story will at least become a fantastic made-for-TV movie, showing what would happen if Hoosiers were set on the Upper West Side:

Until 18 months ago, Erika Sunnegardh, a soprano, had never sung an opera role on stage.

For nearly 20 years she toiled as a waitress, caterer and tour guide in New York. Sure, there was singing: a few recitals and plenty of funerals as a church cantor in the Bronx. Often the choice boiled down to rent or voice lessons.

But in a story that will give a jolt of hope to every would-be performer with a serving tray, Ms. Sunnegardh, 40, has been assigned to appear today at the Metropolitan Opera in the title role of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” as a last-minute substitute for an ailing Karita Mattila. What’s more, the performance is one of the house’s Saturday radio broadcasts, heard by 10 million people around the world.

Compare it to the Yankees starting a pitcher who had done nothing more than toss batting practice, or the president appointing a beat cop as defense secretary. In the annals of opera, it ranks with Plácido Domingo stepping in for Franco Corelli in 1968 to make his Met debut.

Astonishingly, the Met embraced Ms. Sunnegardh solely on the basis of two brief auditions in May 2004, well before her first appearance on any opera stage.

In order not to disrupt the fairy tale, she had to turn in a great performance. The Times reports that if it wasn’t exactly perfect, it was nonetheless great:

A number of people in the audience, perhaps aware of her story — years of working as a waitress, singing at church, and a barren career (until now) — walked out with red-rimmed eyes.

When she came out for her first curtain call, she put her hands together in front of her face and said, “Thank you very much.”

She turned to look at the chorus behind her, which included several former conservatory classmates and neighbors in her building in Riverdale, and raised her hands in acknowledgment. They, in turn, cheered her, she said later in her dressing room.

. . .

The pressure on Ms. Sunnegardh was enormous. Not only was she singing a difficult role before a packed Met, but the performance was being broadcast worldwide to 10 million people.

She had difficulties in Act I: a brief memory lapse and what she called “little mishaps” that made her feel “human.” But she warmed up. “The second act felt like it was really on,” she said.

. . .

In her dressing room, after she had showered and changed into a black dress, she received a stream of visitors. One was Peter Gelb, the Met’s incoming general manager. “So we’ll talk?” Ms. Sunnegardh asked. “We will talk,” he answered.

You Couldn’t Throw A Little Embezzled Largess The Way Of One Of The City’s Smaller Theatres, Could You? And You Know Why? Because The Broadway Hegemony Has Turned All You All Into Theatre Zombies!

More proof that an unhealthy obsession with Broadway shlock is actually a sickness:

A starstruck accountant embezzled nearly a half-million dollars from a Midtown clothing company — then blew the money on Broadway charities, theater tickets and flowers for her favorite female stars.

Jennifer Smith, 35, lavished $3,000 worth of flowers on such celebs as “Wicked” star Kristin Chenoweth, Oscar-nominated actor Catherine Keener, who played Anna in off-Broadway’s “Burn This,” and Anne Nathan of the Broadway hits “Thoroughly Modern Millie” and “Chicago.”

Also presented with purportedly purloined petals were Jennifer Laura Thompson, who played Frieda Bauer in “Pardon My English,” and Cherry Jones, who wowed the critics as Sister Aloysius in “Doubt” at the Walter Kerr Theatre.

Her favorite star was Chenoweth, who played Glinda the Good Witch in “Wicked” at the Gershwin Theatre. Chenoweth got flowers four times from the accused embezzler, who sent them to the star’s home address, prosecutors said.

. . .

The theater-minded charities Broadway Cares and Carnegie Hall Society also benefited from her looted largesse, prosecutors said.

Smith, who has two prior Manhattan embezzlement convictions totaling $58,000, was apparently dissatisfied with the $65,000 she earned as the personal assistant to James Ammeen, owner of Neema Clothing, a manufacturer and importer.

Ammeen had discovered the two years’ worth of alleged thefts only after he fired Smith last June. She was canned after she kept calling in sick, even claiming falsely that she had cancer, only to be spotted at — where else? — a Broadway theater by the boss’ wife.