September 2006
The first donnybrook of the Gelb era may well be the Revolt of the Standees. As most of you know, the Met’s Standing Room policy for the past 20 years or so has been to sell tickets for each week’s performances on Saturday morning. The queue that formed early in the a.m. has been under…
La Cieca is always quick to encourage the clever use of Photoshop, especially when it involves her two favorite subjects, i.e., opera and naked guys. That’s why she strongly recommends a look at the site called Bare Naked Men, where the Vancouver-based “Michael” digitally strips such hunks as William Burden, Nathan Gunn, Simon Keenlyside, David…
Dame Margaret Price sings Mozart in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in the summer of 1983. Gone indeed are this level of singing — and, sadly, this opera audience.
As La Cieca rather broadly hinted yesterday, the Met Opera will indeed bump up their number of broadcasts (and telecasts) this season. Six simulcast video performances (to be viewed in movie theaters) and “more than 100” audio-only Web and satellite radio presentations are promised according to a press release on the Met’s website. The first…
If you call yourself a “serious” Met fan — in other words, if your existence literally revolves around opera, you will be delighted to hear that in the very near future the Gelb-era Met Opera is planning to increase its number of radio broadcasts by as much as 500%. Yes, that’s right, four or five…
The celebrated dramatic soprano Astrid Varnay died earlier today in Munich. She was 88 years old. A few highlights from her 55 year career can be heard in this podcast. Included are scenes from Die Walkure, Tannhauser, Elektra, Der Fliegende Hollander, Der Rosenkavalier, Parsifal, Siegfried, and Tristan und Isolde. powered by ODEOUPDATE: one of the…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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