Arrivals and, uh, non-arrivals

Which young Spanish-speaking artiste is going to the "dogs" with her sex, drugs and coloratura lifestyle? You're not Bolivian, my dear, so lay off the marching powder before you turn into a mess o' soprano!

Which soprano should learn to care more about punctuality at her bel canto rehearsals? Toward her we feel nothing but love; only, we ask, is this any way to revive a dormant career?

And which other soprano with the voice of an angel (and the record contract to prove it), has returned to her accustomed role of spawn of Satan? How else could you explain such antics as clanging silverware onstage during another soprano's aria, hiring a claque to boo a rival, and now, playing hooky from the dress rehearsal of a new production to be recorded for DVD?

Now, ladies, don't get La Cieca wrong. She's totally in favor of colorful and volatile personalities in opera. But consider for a moment: does anyone actually recall how Maria Jeritza sang?

Finally, an item that's not blind! La Cieca is informed by one of her most reliable sources that Christopher Hahn will be the new Artistic Director of the Glimmerglass Festival. Expect an announcement within a couple of days. Smart money says Hahn will continue at Pittsburgh Opera, doubling up a la Paul Kellogg.

Unnatural Acts with an Apple

The reviews for Apple's iTunes 4.9 are mixed but the consensus is "thumbs up." La Cieca downloaded and installed the new version last night; very smooth. The interface with podcasts is something less than lavish, the one part of the application that feels "freeware." But La Cieca realizes there are a lot of people out there who use iTunes as their only jukebox software, so it seems likely that this development will increase the podcast public significantly. A good thing. The down side is that Apple has to review the podcasts before putting them on the one-click "subscribe" list, which means that you can't just go to the site and click on "Unnatural Acts of Opera."

But there is a simple workaround. From iTunes, click on Advanced, the Subscribe To Podcast..., then paste http://parterre.com/podcast/unnaaturalacts.rss into the URL text box. Then then click OK. That will subscribe you to the podcast series.

You can also subcribe on My Yahoo. Just Click on Add Content Add RSS by URL, then paste the URL and continue as in the iTunes instructions.

I'm also working on a tweak that would allow you to play the current "Unnatural Act" directly from the parterre podcast page; more on that maybe this weekend, as well as the first "regular" unnatural act, which at the moment looks like it's going to be Act 1 Traviata from Verona 1970 (Scotto, Bergonzi).

Now, about the Met's plans for a tab version of Magic Flute in the Julie Taymor production. La Cieca says, "Oh, why the hell not?" Somehow La Cieca feels that a 90-minute, fast-moving entertainment is a lot closer to Mozart's original intention than the three-hour plus behemoth the Met delivers when they do the Gesamt version.

Smashing the oligarchies

The decentralization of the music business is progressing so quickly La Cieca can hardly keep up. (Though it's not like she's completely in the loop; as you know, she only recently found out that Giulio Ricordi had died!) The very latest (as of this morning) is that Apple has launched a new build of iTunes will full podcasting support. They promise that the search/subcribe/update/download/sync process will be as simple and intuitive as purchasing a song from the iTunes Music Store. La Cieca will test-drive this new application in the next day or two, then give you a full report on the functionality or lack thereof. In case you're wondering, no, "Unnatural Acts of Opera" is not yet included in Apple's podcast directory, but we're working on that.

Another promising development is the partnership of Naxos of America and OverDrive, Inc. to provide downloadable classical recordings free of charge to cardholders at many of the nation's public libraries. The best part is that the service is web-based, so you can "check out" a digital version of a CD from your home or work computer, then listen to it at your leisure over the next couple of weeks. The digital files then expire and are "checked in" for use by another library patron.

This process strikes a particularly resonant chord with La Cieca. Back in the day, when she was a lowly Opera Infanta on the bayou, she had no access to classical music record stores. The only way to listen to opera (besides those lovely Met broadcasts) was to borrow records from the Louisiana public library system. (No, dear, they were not 78s; we were well into the microgroove era by then.) Anyway, the library provided me with my first aural glimpses of Wagner's Ring, the voices of Tebaldi and Callas, and, yes, even Blomdahl's Aniara. What a boon, then, for the little queens of the 21st century, who will have immediate access to so broad a swathe of the repertoire, while staying within the law. (There will be plenty of time for them to break it later.)

Doin' what comes unnaturally

"Unnatural Acts of Opera" -- that's what La Cieca is calling her new opera podcast. The "unnatural" in this case has nothing to do with sodomy or lasciviousness, but she's sure she can hold your interest anyway, with extraordinary opera performances presented one act at a time. (Get it?) La Cieca stessa will offer commentary before the acts and will remain silent during the music. (You're welcome.)

La Cieca will begin the series by breaking her own rule, first of all by featuring an opera simply dripping with perversity, and second, by offering three programs (i.e., an entire opera) at once. (Don't count on her being so open-handed in future!)

Kicking off, then, is Puccini's Turandot from a 1977 live performance starring Montserrat Caballe, Luciano Pavarotti, Leona Mitchell and Giorgio Tozzi. For more information on this premiere podcast, go to the new parterre podcast page.

In questa regia

Catherine Malfitano just doesn't slow down. In recent seasons she's expanded her repertoire to include a bewildering variety of roles: Kundry, Minnie, Carmen, Blitzstein's Regina, Herodias, the Kostelnicka, Elle in La Voix Humaine (that's her in the picture). She's taught master classes. She's performed a cabaret at Joe's Pub here in New York. And now she's directing her first opera, Madama Butterfly at the Central City Opera House -- incidentally the site of her professional debut as an opera singer back in 1972 (Nannetta in Falstaff). The Butterfly production, featuring Maria Kanyova in the title role, opens tomorrow night. Cathy, as usual not at a loss for words, talks about her new role as regisseuse in The Rocky Mountain News. The season at Central City also includes Emily Pulley's first Vanessa, starting July 2.

Sexual confusion at the opera

The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, is using "sexual confusion" to prevent wear and tear on their costume collection:

"The traps installed for the Royal Opera House make male clothes moths appear to other males as females, by sticking female pheromones to their bodies.

"In a plot that could have come from an opera, males attempt to mate with the false females, but do not succeed . . . . moths were costing the Royal Opera House tens of thousands of pounds a year.

"The worst affected are ballet dancers' costumes, which get engrained with sweat, clothes moths' favourite taste.

"The Royal Opera House has around 2,000 costumes at Covent Garden at any one time, some of which are more than a century old . . . . Its archive includes the red dress Maria Callas wore in Tosca."

Here's more about this oddly familiar-sounding moth-on-moth action. Speaking of which, don't forget to check out La Cieca's all new, all-femme radio show!

"Singing is difficult"

... so says soprano/mentor Renata Scotto, in a charming interview in the NY Times about her singing academy in Westchester. And, of course, there's a lot more wisdom where that came from. Matthew Gurewitsch is the attentive interviewer. Now Playing at the D.M.V.: Renata Scotto.

Femmes Fatales

Debuting today on Il Gran Teatro della Cieca, "Femmes Fatales," a program featuring deadly divas. Featured are complete and demented performances of L'incoronazione di Poppea, Macbeth, Samson et Dalila, Jenufa and Turandot.

The lethal lovelies in question are Anna Caterina Antonacci, Shirley Verrett, Oralia Dominguez, Anja Silja and Montserrat Caballe; victims and co-conspirators include David Daniels, Kurt Moll, Piero Cappuccilli, Nicolai Ghiaurov, Jon Vickers, Ernest Blanc, Karita Mattila, Jerry Hadley, Luciano Pavarotti, Leona Mitchell and Giorgio Tozzi.


Il Gran Teatro della Cieca



The very quick turnaround on this show can be credited to two amazing pieces of shareware, MP3 Surgeon (for direct editing of MP3s without decoding to wav, and, consequently, no degradation of sound through re-encoding) and Audiograbber, the fastest ripper La Cieca has ever seen, and, girls, would you believe it's free?

"Wahn" is my middle name

Norman Lebrecht has lost his fucking mind. My second favorite in this rabid rant is how Wieland Wagner (the "competent" stage director) had the middle name "Adolf." (Wieland was born in 1917, six years before his mother Winifred met the fellow Lebrecht insinuates was his namesake.) The number one brain-fart in the piece is Lebrecht's utterly vomitous attempt to guilt-associate Siegfried Wagner's (rumored) gay orientation with Nazism. Lebrecht's idee fixe is the "death" of classical music. He should worry more about his own serial-killing of intelligent classical music criticism.

Mari Lyn on DVD at last!

Mean, moody, magnificent Mari Lyn has finally (if posthumously) made her debut on DVD, thanks to the equally (if not more so) magnificent Donald Collup. Mme. Lyn, variously called "Hogcolleratura" and "La Traviyenta," regaled the public access airwaves in the mid-1980s with a series called "The Golden Treasury of Song," featuring the blond-bewigged "singing hostess" warbling her way through everything from "Casta diva" to "Ma Curly-Headed Baby." Donald has anthologized La Lyn's greatest moments (and worst quarters of an hour) into three DVDs that La Cieca is certain are destined to give this and future generations hours upon hours of delight. An audio clip of Mme. Lyn reading the letter from La traviata is one of the all-time favorite downloads from parterre.com, but, believe me, Mari Lyn is an artist who needs to be seen to be appreciated in her complete fulsomeness. La Cieca urges, entreats, and cajoles you go go immediately to Donald's website to order these glorious documents of "the art of mal canto."

The gods are listening

La Cieca hears that performances of Medea featuring Anna Caterina Antonacci this summer at the Chatelet will be taped for eventual DVD release. The production is from Toulouse, where la Antonacci won rapturous reviews for her first incarnation of Cherubini's antiheroine.

Web of mystery

La Cieca is just asking -- why should the Web site of that prominent American baritone suddenly go offline? This artist (recently at the pinnacle of his career) has done musicals before, but this fancy footwork looks like something from Chicago!

And which switch-hitting intendant is making noises about quitting his summer job? Is he feeling cooped up, or is it just that he wants to spend more time looking at New York City real estate?

Vera to the rescue

Even as La Cieca writes this, the evergreen Vera Galupe-Borszkh is preparing to go onstage for her first-ever Duchesse de Krakenthorp in Michigan Opera Theater's Fille du Regiment. As La Cieca understands it (reports are somewhat sketchy thus far), La Dementia is graciously jumping in at short notice for Shirley Verrett, who has sung(?) the Duchesse in earlier performances of the Donizetti tuner. More on this momentous story as it develops.

Update (June 12): In fact, Mme. Galupe-Borszkh performed the entire run of Fille, though curiously Verrett's name is still listed on MOT's website. Final performance is today's matinee. No word whether Vera interpolates Gran Scena's celebrated "Motown Medley" in honor of the venue. Anachronistic? Perhaps. But of what relevance is time to a diva whose art is timeless? As, for example, her classic reading of "Les chemins de l'amour."

Vissi d'arte

"This week, I'm using Crème de la Mer for my skin, and products from Scott Barnes, the make-up artist who was responsible for J.Lo's glow. His trio of pink geisha-inspired blushers make my day. I have my hair cut by Vartan Vartali and coloured by Michael Stinchcomb, who's a fan and travels all round the world looking after me. And twice a year I go clothes-shopping. My wardrobe has become very streamlined. I buy from a handful of designers — Gianfranco Ferré, Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto." Who else but Renaaay, talking to the Sunday Times? (And did I mention she has two daughters?)

They're here already! You're next!

So La Cieca has been thinking about joining the pod people; that is, she wants to try her hand at podcasting. One idea off the top of La Cieca's well-coiffed head is something called "Daily Dose of Diva," a mix of some of my favorite opera recordings and a bit of yakking thrown in. But what's important is what you want -- so let's do a little informal market research. What kind of content would you like to download from the parterre podcast? Complete operas? Opera highlights? Potpourri shows? Themed shows (a la George Jellinek)? Interviews? Leave a comment or email me as we embark together upon this great auditory adventure!

Jailhouse rock

Well, Mr. Vilar, there's good news and bad news.

The bad news is that you fell $1 million short of meeting bail and so you're staying in the slammer.

The good news is that your cellmate could be Russell Crowe.

All Tebaldi, All the Time

Those clips from Forza La Cieca posted a couple of weeks ago got her obsessing on Renata Tebaldi, surely one of the healthier obsessions! So La Cieca has launched a new web radio show, "A Tebaldi Festival," over 10 hours of all-live prime Tebaldi. Featured are complete performances of La forza del destino (Florence, 1953), Fedora (Naples, 1961), La traviata (Naples, 1954), and La Wally (RAI, 1960) -- plus brani scelti from Adriana Lecouvreur, Manon Lescaut, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and La fanciulla del West. Also headlining the show: Mario del Monaco, Aldo Protti, Fedora Barbieri, Cesare Siepi, Renato Capecchi, Giuseppe di Stefano, Mario Sereni, Giacinto Prandelli, Anselmo Colzani, Ettore Bastianini, Franco Corelli, Richard Tucker, Dimitri Mitropouplos, Tullio Serafin, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, and Arturo Basile.

It's all there for you at Il Gran Teatro della Cieca.

Ah chi mi dice mai...

La Cieca is as puzzled as everyone else about the mysterious disappearance of the DGG DVD of Don Giovanni (Met telecast with Terfel, Fleming, Levine - you know the one). The disc was released on May 10, then only days later DGG recalled it. Now there's not a copy to be bought anywhere, and early adopters are carefully hoarding what promises to be a major collector's item. So what happened? Is there a glitch in the subtitles? Was Terfel's incessant cooch-grabbing considered too TV-14 for wide release? Does Jimmy want to go back and do it over with slower tempi? Or is this some clever marketing ploy to motivate operalovers to inflate opening weekend numbers?