August 2007
Wow! Who is this Odabella? As several of you quick-witted commenters have divined, the mystery Odabella is none other than Eva Marton, who performed in Verdi’s Attila in 1972. As you watch this YouTube clip of the entire aria, thrill to la Marton’s precocious mastery of diva body language!
Yes, another YouTube posting, but this one is something very special indeed. Legendary Zarah Leander is seen in a few moments from her 1975 triumph as Madame Armfelt in Das Lächeln einer Sommernacht (A Little Night Music) at the Theater an der Wien. La Leander also cavorts about a studio, lipsynching a medley of her…
There’s some bit of information that La Cieca’s missing in this story, or maybe it would be obvious to readers in the “This is Wiltshire Network.” But here goes. “Yet another” rural opera festival in Britain (this time, in “Somerly Park,” which is where La Cieca imagines the Maggie Smith character lives when she’s not…
Congratulations to NYT writer Michael Kimmelman, whose post-mortem on Katharina Wagner‘s Bayreuth Meistersinger contains a sentence that beats all world’s records for running, standing and equivocation: The approach is not, in the abstract, without merit, Beckmesser having always seemed a proto-Jew to Wagner, awaiting modern redemption; the opera’s end comes across as the screed it…
That utterly addictive web presence Vinyl Divas has just updated their fascinating, wide-ranging collection of operatic LP covers with high-quality scans of albums featuring every opera lady you’ve ever heard of (and more than a few you haven’t.) The latest set runs the gamut from Alla Ablaberdyeva (performing Bach, Purcell and Handel with the assistance…
Tending the sacro fuoco this week at Unnatural Acts of Opera will be that priestess of the primo ottocento Leyla Gencer. The diva sings the title role in Spontini’s La Vestale in a performance from Teatro Massino di Palermo, December 4, 1969. Ferando Previtali conducts, and the young Renato Bruson is heard as Cinna. Also…
The American dramatic soprano is heard in the final scene of Daphne (R. Strauss) in a performance from Buenos Aires, 1948. Set Svanholm is Apollo; Erich Kleiber conducts. Rose Bampton sings Daphne
This just in: you know who else was schwul? Herbert Janssen!
La Cieca has just learned that tenor Joseph Kaiser will make a “surprise” Met debut October 3, singing the role of Roméo in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette. He will also sing performances on October 6 and 11, replacing the ailing Rolando Villazón. Kaiser stars as Tamino in Kenneth Branagh’s film of The Magic Flute and…
BTW, this film is called La donna più bella del mondo, and it’s very loosely suggested by certain events and characters in the life and legend of Lina Cavalieri. (In other words, it’s utter and pure fiction.) But anyway, la Cavalieri is portrayed by Gina Lollbrigida, who certainly lives up to the title “The Most…
Our new correspondent Miss Laura Hope Cruisey finishes her report from Santa Fe. Everywhere we look there is Nicole Cabell – so exotic! Wow! Very interesting looking woman; and her new arias CD is the most advertised classical record around, and it is getting good reviews. She was kind of a Mrs. Obama on stage…
A Faithful Reader writes: “Went to the closing performance of Deuce today and during one quiet moment I thought I heard a familiar snore. Sure enough, as I was leaving, there was Lois, wakened by the ovation . . . . “I’m sure she was headed back to get autographs as she was looking in…
La Cieca’s Gal-pal del Golden West, Laura Hope Cruisey, sounds off on Santa Fe, 2007. Can we talk like this? Has Carl Rove turned off the reel-to-reel, before he turned out the lights? Well, since the New York Times seemingly did not cover the Santa Fe Opera Festival 2007, somebody’s got to say what happened…
Kitty: I was reading a book the other day. Carlotta: Reading a book! Kitty: Yes. It’s all about civilization or something, a nutty kind of a book. Do you know that the guy said that machinery is going to take the place of every profession? Carlotta: Oh, my dear, that’s something you need never worry…
UPDATE: A source at Opera Colorado informs La Cieca that there is in fact no exodus currently in progress from the company’s costume shop. La Cieca apologizes for the confusion. Earlier, La Cieca reported that her “mile-high informant” whispered that “Colorado Opera’s entire costume department just quit in a huff. Or was fired in a…
Neither is opera-related, but La Cieca just can’t help herself. Nothing really changes.
A little bird high in the rarefied air of the Rockies informs La Cieca that James Robinson “will be named come September as the new Artistic Director of Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, a post held until this Spring by the late and laudable Colin Graham.” Robinson is perhaps best remembered here in New York…
In fact, the opera is anything but obscure. But the performance has been seen only rarely since 1956.
Roberto Alagna will jump — no, not into the swimming pool, but rather into the first two performances (September 25 and 29) of the Met’s fall revival of Roméo et Juliette, replacing Rolando Villazón who has withdrawn due to illness. The Met’s press office officially announced Villazón’s cancellation today, though regular parterre.com readers knew all…
The delightful and greatly missed Madeline Kahn explains how she almost became an opera singer. The complete version of this 1985 Opera Quiz, also featuring Kitty Carlisle Hart and Charles Nelson Reilly, can be found on Veoh. com.
As La Cieca whispered earlier this week, Rolando Villazón is going to cancel at least the fall portion of his Met Roméo engagement. This morning PlaybillArts.com says the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting a statement from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra that the tenor is “ill and has been instructed by his doctor to cancel all performances…
Nelly Miricioiu sings the second act of Roberto Devereux plus the finale of Rossini’s Ermione in the current episode of Unnatural Acts of Opera. Representing the German wing, Martha Moedl is seen in a rare television appearance, performing Lieder by Wagner and Wolf, discussing her career, and performing a scene from Mahagonny. It’s all at…
From the 1983 public access TV show “Stairway to Stardom,” a singer with a fabulous name, Giuseppe Taormina. You know, a name like that is very hard to live up to, and, what do you know, live up to it he doesn’t.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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