Let us put away gloomy thoughts for a while and enjoy the singing, acting, dancing and costume-changing skills of inimitable Anna Moffo.
[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/DfM4GxzNYWc" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
Well, cher public, La Cieca thinks it’s safe to say that April 19, 2007 will stand in history as Andrea Gruber‘s Metropolitan Opera farewell. The soprano’s dates for Cavalleria Rusticana, her only appearances scheduled for the 2008-2009 season, have now been reassigned to Waltraud Meier and Ildikó Komlósi.
That deucedly clever Bridget Jones was the first to guess the correct title for our previous Regie puzzler: Cavalli’s La Calisto it was!
So now let’s all put on our thinking caps and decide which opera this might be:
A REMINDER: if you have seen this production, please don’t blurt it out: the point of the quiz is to guess the opera based only on the photos shown.
Good luck!
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Lego Opera returns with an adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen, courtesy of the gifted regisseur BarkingBartok. [kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/5p9lzLLT4A8" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
The grandeur of Unnatural Acts of Opera continues with a podcast of Hamlet by Ambroïse Ambroise Thomas. Hamlet, Act 1 Hamlet: Simon Keenlyside; Claudius: Robert Lloyd; Gertrude: Yvonne Naef; Ophelie: Natalie Dessay; Laerte: Yann Beuron; Le Spectre: Markus Hollop; Marcellus: Edgaras Montvidas; Horatio: Graeme Broadbent; Polonius: Jonathan May; Gravediggers: Darren Jeffery, Matthew Beale. Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Louis Langree. May 20, 2003. And here’s a scene of Keenlyside and Dessay in the same act, though a different production: [kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/cB2IT15auHg" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
Erogenous Erwin Schrott is the subject of a newly-launched Decca artist site publicizing his new CD, due for release July 22. And speaking of twins, did La Cieca mention that Mr. Schrott was separated at birth from Jonathan Rhys-Meyers? Though, of course, the always independent OperaChic has her own ideas of who’s the Doppelgänger.
A “lost” selection from a 1972 gala. [kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/2fBoaPF7F6U" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
Can it be that in mid-July we are already thinking about the last days of summer? Well, La Cieca is, especially since she’s just found out that Robert Wilson‘s Byrd Hoffman Watermill Foundation will offer the unlikely duo of Rufus Wainwright and Jessye Norman in a concert entitled “Last Song of Summer” on August 30. According to Fashion Week Daily, the grande dame/ex-tweaker pairup promises to be “a noted departure from the center’s always highly-anticipated 15th-annual Watermill summer benefit on July 26… This year’s gala will feature the work of German artist Jonathan Meese, who … will transform the venue’s pure [...]
Cher Public