Semi-ubiquitous
Our editor JJ's busy week included a review of the Met's Aegyptische Helena in Gay City News, and that panel La Cieca has been yammering about all week. As his presentation on the topic "Opera and Technology," JJ introduced this little documentary about your own La Cieca.
Labels: blog, camp, critic, diva, drag, filth, fleming, gay gay gay gay gay, gcn, la cieca ci guarda la cieca ci vede, maury d'annato, met, midgette, nyco, nyt, our own, parody, podcast, review, voigt, youtube
POSTED at
11:09 AM
15 Comments:
OK, that's brilliant.
That is fantastic La Cieca! And tell JJ his review has assauged some of my doubts about the production.
So I'm headed over to NYCO for the first time next week for DONNA DEL LAGO. I'm still in high school, so I qualify for student rush and discount. Has anyone done the rush? Where do they put you? And what is the rush scene like at the Met?
lovely mini-documentary!!
baritenor: NYCO student tix work in two ways. There's the day-of rush tix but then there are the 50% coupons. The rush tix are wherever they have seats available i believe. I've only ever actually used the 50% coupons which allow you to choose among almost all their performances at 50% off regular prices. I prefer this b/c then you know for sure where you will sit (though rush is cheaper). However, I believe you have to ask them where to get these coupons because I got them through my college, so i'm not sure whether you can simply go down to the nyco and get them, but who knows, you may be able to.
The MET used to have a wonderful student ticket policy where they would post all the student ticket performances 2 weeks in advance. Now, however, they offer far far fewer student tickets, which are only available the day of. (you have to call and see if they have them, then go down, it's really inconvenient) To give you a sense: Last year they had student tix to angela's traviata which was very well sold, and this year they didn't even have student tix to her boccanegra which was NOT well sold at all. A big reason for this is those 20$ rush tickets, because they take a big chunk out of the orchestra section. However, it is still a generous program. I saw chenier on thursday and sat orchestra row X dead center and last night saw egyptian helen and sat row K dead center, so i can't really complain especially b/c tickets are 25$ on weeknights and 35$ on weekends for students for orch. seats, which is actually cheaper than comparable NYCO seats even at 50% off. (I know this is long and convuluded, but if you have any more questions just ask)
scificsi-
Well, what's the probability there will be rush for next Wednesday's HELENA and how do I get it?
next tuesday's helena, i'm 100% sure will unfortunately not have student tickets. If it was last year, they probably would have. If you have the time, you could wait in line for a couple hours to get 20$ rush tickets, which I think is worth it for helena. I personally loved it and thought that both voigt and damrau were astounding. The orchestra also played strauss' difficult score astonishingly well and the finale was thrilling.
Hmm...too bad. What about The prima of Cesare next week. Handel doesn't generally sell that well.
At least one of the cesare performances if not more, will have student tickets. If a performance doesn't have any of the orchestra section sold out, there's a good/sure chance that they will have tickets. I wouldn't really presume to be an authority on student tickets, but i have observed the behavior of the MET box office in relation to student tickets for quite some time. Here's another thing: don't be shy about asking for what you want with student tickets. If you would like a seat further up, just ask for it. But perhaps your best bet for the very best seats, albeit a risky one, is to go right before the performance starts to get your tickets, because at that point the box office has no reason to withold the orchestra prime/premium seats.
Totally, way, way, out of this world off-topic:
PBS Chicago will finally broadcast The Trebs' Puritani, more than a month late. The performance starts at 2 p.m., Sunday.
At least, she would be a knock-out to look at.
Brilliance as always, La Cieca. Perhaps your story will inspire others, strong of will (though limp of wrist) to follow their dreams and blow even more wind up the skirts of this wonderfully queer world of opera.
darling la cieca how wonderful to have your story - though surely not in full? We missed those years of your misspent southern days with you ears glued to the wireless and you listened to Grace Moore and the gang from the Old Met.
And speaking of the Met - was it me or was there something not quite right this afternoon? Or was it just the sound on my old wireless?
Wonderful la Cieca
Shamefully, I missed the panel. I heard it was most enjoyable!
You go, girl! And promote yourself as shamelessly as you care to. We love having you! And we love having Parterre!
La Cieca, you are so funny! You also have the courage to do as an adult what I and two close friends ( brothers) did as children. We were trapped out in the sticks, only able to listen to opera through the massive 78/45 collection available and the Saturday broadcasts. (Often the parents were away AT those performances.) If we wanted live opera, we had to do it ourselves!
Our main device of devilment was a giant reel to reel tape recorder. Being only three we would have tow rewrite the librettos somewhat, and then record it with the sections of music in the background we needed, along with chrous. We would record ourselves too, to act as prompters in our bits.
We actually went so far to as to stage our creations, because we had an attic full of materials and props dating back a century- their grandmother had been one of the 400, and her duds and her other 2 husbands' as well were all stacked up there. As the only female, I managed to get away with being some character revolving around Schwarzkopf's roles, my excuse being that we only had blonde wigs. The truth was she played stronger characters that didn't tend to die, and well, she was soo....grand.
Our audiences usually consisted of the wonderfully humourous and ancient Aunt, and her few friends left alive. The suffered us because they knew all the operas and could understand what we were making fun of. No doubt this was aided by Julips and Long Island iced tea served along with the show.
These things all came to an end with the death of the ancient aunt. Somehow it didn't seem the same without her cackling at us. Now many years later I can look back and think of all that talent wasted, LOL.
Coincidently, it was one of those grown up brothers who referred me to this site.
Thanks for the fun, and the memories.
Thanks scifisci for the rundown on the new rushline at the Met. I hope I'm not left out in the cold when I go next month.
And La Cieca, sheer brilliance in your little flick. That was great fun. And what was with the thanks? Why in the hell would I deserve thanks? LOL. Perhaps for my Ree-nee comment which didn't make the clip. HAHA. That was choice that you threw that sound clip in there...
-Le baryton
P.S. - You forgot to mention that straights listen and participate faithfully in your musings. Gays aren't the only ones with operatic preoccupations, love for the banter/gossip, and a sense of humor! However, I must say a ton of you queens really DO have some of the best wit out there... I probably have spent countless hours after all this time roaring over some of the comments and dialogue on this site.
Thanks for the operatic knowledge and laughs everyone!
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