parterre box

One of La Cieca’s intricate network of spies has been keeping his ear to the ground in San Francisco where a supernumerary friend whispered to him that “there was concern amongst the SFO backstage ranks that since La Gheorghiu had yet to show up for any La rondine rehearsals, that she may go the route of of her recent Lyric Opera contretemps and be dismissed as a no-show.”

Signor Spy assured his super friend that Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna “were merely enjoying a personal idyll in NYC … that once Mr. Alagna finished up with Pinkerton last Saturday, she (or both) would probably be winging to the West Coast to keep the SFO commitment.” He then passed along to La Cieca a report on the soprano’s “first rehearsal appearance.”

UPDATE: Well, now it seems our original spy has reconsidered the hearsay he shared earlier and asked that the “Super” quotes be removed. Fair enough, La Cieca thinks, since she’s not entirely clear on whether Super gave Spy carte blanche to share the “insights” in the first place.

La Cieca does not plan on making a habit of putting the toothpaste back in the tube, but this appears to be a special case. Okay with you, cher public?

Writes a spy:

Today at the final dress, it was pretty obvious why Reneeeeee would cancel her Normas – the “Sempre libera” was SCARY bad – completely off the voice for the mewing and really sloppy coloratura, and then she had to go back on-voice to try and get to the Bb/B/C/Db area. The repeated C’s were especially hair-raising, and she didn’t actually get up to the pitch on any of them in the whole aria. A friend [also] watching the dress said it was uncomfortable and worrisome to have to listen to her try and get through it. While she can still produce creamy sounds in her basic rep, her ability to sing fioritura (which, while totally wrong for bel canto, was impressive at one time) is basically gone.

An interview with director Krzysztof Warlikowski in the current issue of Takt, the house magazine for the Bayerisches Staatsoper, confirms that you, cher public, were exactly right about the “slant” of his new production of Yevgeny Onegin opening tonight in Munich. In the interview (available online, as is the rest of the magazine, in pdf format), Warlikowski draws parallels between Tchaikovksy’s life and several plot points of the opera, concluding

Homosexualität verbergen zu müssen und nicht verbergen zu können, das ist für mich der Schlüssel zu diesem Werk. Denken Sie nur an den Film “Brokeback Mountain” von Ang Lee: kein Schwulenfilm, sondern die Geschichte von zwei Menschen, die gegen ihre Leidenschaft ankämpfen müssen, weil die Gesellschaft sie ihnen nicht erlaubt – zwei Menschen, die ihre Liebe zueinander jahrelang nur in Blicken oder kurzen Berührungen leben dürfen.

The interviewer, naturally enough, goes for the followup: “Was hat das mit Tatjana und Onegin zu tun?” As it turns out, Warlikowski’s take is pretty much standard queer theory:

Auch Tatjana will gegen die Regeln der Gesellschaft leben – genau wie wie beiden Jungen aus “Brokeback Mountain”. In der Briefszene bietet sie Onegin ihre bedingungslose Liebe an, sie will sich das Recht nehmen, ein glückliches Leben führen zu dürfen – in einer Zeit, in der die Frauen, siehe ihre Mutter oder die Njanja, eben nicht glücklich waren und nicht aus Liebe geheiratet haben. Tatjana will genau das . . . . Für mich ist [Onegins] Duellszene mit Lenski fast eine liebesszene. Ist es nicht bemerkenswert, dass Lenski fast nie Olga ansingt, sondern immer nur Onegin? Für mich ist Onegin verliebt in Lenski . . . . So tötet Onegin Lenski in einem verzweifelten Akt der Selbstbehauptung, mit dem er nichts anderes herausschreit als “Ich bin nicht homosexuell!”.

The Staatsoper’s website offers a short video trailer for the production (unfortunately at the moment available only in a skimpy dialup-size stream) and the audio of the opening night will be webcast live beginning at 2:00 PM (via OperaCast).

The Broadway baritone, star of Camelot, died yesterday at the age of 73. Goulet won a Tony Award for for the 1968 Kander and Ebb musical The Happy Time, and most recently appeared on Broadway as Georges in the 2004 revival of La Cage aux Folles. An obituary and appreciation of the performer can be found at Playbill News.

“1,000 faces and ten years of Kumm at the National Opera” is the intriguing headline of what disappointingly turns out to be a review of a rock concert.

And La Cieca was so sure this was in some way connected with the impending prima of the Krzysztof Warlikowski production of Yevgeny Onegin.

Opera performances in Paris are canceled due to strikes.

The Gallery Met — you know, that space off to the opposite side of the box office, over near the State Theater? Oh, didn’t you know there was a gallery there? Well, in fact, neither did much of anyone else, judging by the sparse attendance there ever since they removed the lesbian erotica (that is, the Richard Prince piece about Madama Butterfly, which La Cieca thought was kind of fun). Now, let’s see. La Cieca knows she asked you here for a reason… oh, yes, of course! There’s actually a new exhibition opening at the Gallery Met, a sort of tie-in with the New Yorker, which certainly sounds like a nice intersection of target audiences.

Gallery Met has assembled together artists from the venerable magazine, plus a few special guests, in a colorful exhibition of new, original artworks titled Hansel and Gretel. The exhibition features such familiar New Yorker names as Roz Chast, Ian Falconer, Jules Feiffer, Ana Juan, Ed Koren, Anita Kunz, Lorenzo Mattotti, Christoph Niemann, Lou Romano, Owen Smith, William Steig, Gahan Wilson, and Bob Zoell. The exhibit also features new works by artists John Currin, George Condo, and William Wegman—also inspired by Hansel and Gretel.

The Met’s new production of the Humperdinck opera opens December 24. The gallery exhibition will be on view Friday, November 16 through February 2006.