March 2008
Well, actually, yes, now you do. The New York Times is no longer the only major metropolitan daily whose music critic drools all over opera singers of the masculine persuasion. La Cieca is delighted to introduce the verbal stylings of David Mermelstein, who apparently is that gay man who has heretofore been trapped inside the…
The Met’s second season of “Live in HD†continues on Saturday, March 15 at 1:30 pm/est with the new production of Britten’s Peter Grimes. Tenor Anthony Dean Griffey sings the title role, Patricia Racette is the kindhearted Ellen Orford, and Anthony Michaels-Moore is Balstrode. Donald Runnicles conducts. Intermission features include live interviews hosted by star…
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La Cieca did a bit of nosing around about the abrupt departure of Jeffrey Vanderveen from IMG, and this is how the story is shaping up. Vanderveen’s upcoming gig is the creation of a new division at Universal Music Group devoted to the production and promotion of Tibor Rudas style arena concerts for Universal Classics’ recording artists.…
Musical America reports this morning that Jeffrey Vanderveen has resigned from his post as Senior Vice President/Director, Vocal Divison at IMG Artists. At IMG Vanderveen repped such superstars as Anna Netrebko, Thomas Hampson, Sam Ramey and Denyce Graves. [via wqxr.com]
A loyal reader writes: I wanted to let you know that the Tristan prima was a disaster. Only because of the Tristan (which, I guess we can’t relegate to a minor consideration), since it was otherwise mostly okay — if you can accept zero visual dramatic sense in the whole expedition. (As an extreme illustration of this…
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: March 9, 3:30 PM: After only 30 hours and on only the third try (or perhaps fourth, depending on how often you refresh the page), the New York Times has managed to report accurately the personnel and repertoire of a single selection at a concert that took place three days ago:Â
As you may recall, last year the BBC Music Magazine published a list of “The 20 Greatest Sopranos of All Time,” and one or two of you didn’t quite see eye to eye with their selection. Well, this year they’ve turned their attention to the top 20 among tenors, who are (in ascending order of…
This has to be the strangest staging of a Puccini opera ever! [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/JGa1Z2UlvMY” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] Ah, La Cieca must have her little joke! But seriously, cher public, the previous Regiequiz depicted (as so many of you divined) Parsifal. But wait! If this is Parsifal. . . . . . then surely this…
La Cieca just heard that Ben Heppner has canceled the first night of the Met’s revival of Tristan und Isolde. John Mac Master will sing opposite Deborah Voigt.
It has been said that at parterre.com the only way to separate the men from the boys is by calling in the vice cops, but La Cieca begs to differ. Many of the regulars on this site call themselves opera queens, but La Cieca is betting that perhaps one, perhaps several, perhaps none of you…
Better to say “greatest misses,” La Cieca thinks, though even that phrase is flawed by a nearly Hollandaise level of inaccuracy. The errors and gaffes of the flannel-eared Times critic are surely too many and too egregious for one writer to anthologize; certainly they seem to have overwhelmed the Newspaper of Record’s squadrons of copy…
Il viaggio a Reims (Part 2)
Sarah Jessica Parker takes a spill at the Metropolitan Opera yesterday during a photo shoot with Annie Liebovitz for Vogue.
“You’d been so cruel to me at the party. Imitating me, making people laugh at me. I watched you get out of the car and I wanted to run you down, crush you. You saw the car coming. I hit the gates. Snapped my spine.”
La Cieca has removed the image of the Royal Opera’s Rigoletto production (you know, the one starring Juan Pablo di Pace and his amazing disappearing dick) from parterre.com in response to an email from the copyright owner of that photo, ArenaPAL.
Francesca Zambello, director of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, will be awarded the Chevalier Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters) by the French government for her contribution to French culture. The reception will be held on Monday, March 10th at The Cultural Services of the French Embassy.
Those early birds among you who were counting on getting a “preview” of this season’s Met Tristan tomorrow morning at the dress rehearsal will, as it turns out, will have to settle for only “und Isolde.” La Cieca has just been informed that Ben Heppner is sitting out the Generalprobe, with cover John Mac Master…
Even a veteran sob sister like La Cieca cannot cover the vast field of opera all by herself, though goodness knows she does her best. But one must give credit where credit is due. As such your doyenne wants to offer her thanks to a journal which is rapidly becoming her source for the best…
“I always cite the opera divas, like Leontyne Price. I mean, of course I’m an old fart, so I go back to these people who aren’t around anymore. But Leontyne Price and Marilyn Horne and Beverly Sills, I mean, they were glamour queens, and they were women who were not a size two …. It’s…
La Cieca hears that tonight’s performance of La traviata at the Met will be dedicated to the memory of Jerry Hadley. Sadly, operatic legends have been (to put it bluntly) dying in such droves lately that the dedications are falling farther and farther behind. For example, the New York Times has reported that the Met…
Dashing Donald Collup has expanded into yet another media niche with a series of podcasts featuring audio highlights from his acclaimed Astrid Varnay documentary DVD “Never Before.” Here la Varnay recalls her legendary colleague Zinka Milanov. More Astridiana (along with lots of other goodies from the Collup collection) may be found at the official “Never…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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