Our publisher JJ sounds off on recent productions of Romeo et Juliette, Zaza and Giulliame Tell (which sounds like a very full king-sized bed indeed!) in the latest installment of Gay City News. Meanwhile, La Cieca presents Il trittico on Unnatural Acts of Opera.
La Cieca is grateful for all her blessings, including the 1962 live performance of Il trovatore featured on the current episode of Unnatural Acts of Opera. (Lots of ham here, but no turkey!)
La Cieca has just heard that the “flying bed”effect in the Met’s new production of Romeo et Juliette malfunctioned last night, sending Natalie Dessay tumbling six feet onto a hard platform and leaving Ramon Vargas dangling. The bed is suspended from “invisible” wires and appears to float in a starry sky, a tableau that opens the fourth act of the production. Before the curtain rose, the soprano and tenor were hoisted into their midair position, and then one of the wires snapped or slipped loose. The bed then overturned and dumped the hapless singers into space. The audience was told only that there was a “technical problem” backstage. After a delay, the act began with the bed already in place on the lower platform. A production insider says, “No one is ever going to get in that bed again. I’m sure the effect will be scrapped immediately.” May La Cieca make a modest suggestion? Perhaps, in order to avoid future accidents of this sort, the Met should engage someone in senior management with practical knowledge of stagecraft — say, a former carpenter?
La Cieca, ear to ground as always, has picked up some reliable-sounding scuttlebutt about the incoming Peter Gelb regime at the Met. The first decade will probably be known as “All Villazon All the Time” since (per our source), Rolando Villazon has inked a pledge to sing two operas a year at the Met for the next ten years. A major highlight of this package will be a new Contes d’Hoffmann in ’09, with RV opposite Anna Netrebko, Diana Damrau and Rene Pape. Gelb is ready to put his mark on the house as early as opening night of next [...]
“She is as controversial offstage as she is on, but a total delight. With all her swings of happy and unhappy moods and periods of pressure, there is still a sense of incredible intelligence and instinct behind everything she does…. Her problems are understandable in light of the kind of performer she is, never placid or even-tempered. But she is not temperamental either, in the sense of doing personal damage to anyone — only suffering in herself to perform…. What makes Tatiana special is that odd combination of enormous strength and an almost palpitating, sensual quality. It’s a vibrancy that [...]
Natalie Dessay is out of tonight’s prima of Romeo et Juliette at the Met; Maureen O’Flynn sings (and, incidentally, will go into the annals as the “creator” of the role in this particular production). Dessay is still on the roster for Thursday’s performance.
Which regional opera honcho just got booted because he (and the Mrs.) were caught trolling for sex on the internet? Funny, they seem like such ordinary people!
La Cieca scoured Google Images but couldn’t seem to come up with an authentic poster for Leoncavallo’s Zaza (which of course you and everyone you know will be hearing tomorrow night at Alice Tully Hall). As such, she decided she’d have to create her own. Click on the image for a larger version, suitable for printing or making into a tee shirt.
Long before Matthias Goerne got all girly on us, popera megastar Andrea Bocelli (remember him?) dipped his wick into Wagner chick-lit. This is according to our colleague Nick Scholl at trrill.com, who goes on to snark re crossover and trannies. A link to Kirsten Flagstad showing us How It Should Be Done ensues.
That classic Mozart/da Ponte warning against the dangers of the heterosexual lifestyle, Don Giovanni, is the basis for La Cieca’s next podcast. It’s an example of what is called “big house Mozart” — in other words, Mozart performed in a grand opera house, with full-voiced Verdian and Wagnerian singers, and in general overlaid with a Romantic sensibility. The venue is the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and the date is February 19, 1962. Georg Solti wields the baton, and the lavish casting includes Cesare Siepi, Geraint Evans, and what must be both the most starry and the best-contrasted trio of [...]
Cher Public