big story brewing
La Cieca about to try one of those 21st century activities all the kids are talking about, and no, it’s not chugging Nyquil. Your doyenne is going to use crowdsourcing (that is, put you cher public to work as reporters) to cover the Met’s Opening Night Gala on September 22, 2008 at 6:30 pm. Since this once-in-a-lifetime edition of the Fleming Follies is being rolled out as a multmedia visual, auditory and olfactory experience, it is only fitting that parterre.com should cover it in depth, not to mention glory.
So here’s the plan. We definitely need someone in the theater for the gala beginning at 6:30 equipped with a text-enabled phone or Blackberry-ish device to send us breaking news. (Volunteers?) Further, La Cieca would like to hear from at least a couple of you queens who will be watching the HD Theater Simulcast to fill us in on details of the couture frocks and the backstage mishegas. The spectacle will also be transmitted via Sirius, during which La Cieca promises one of her good old-fashioned home-cooked live chats.
Have you, member of the cher public, a special angle or point of view you’d like to express on this night of nights? Email La Cieca with the idea for your story; the writer of the best pitch selected and published will win a coveted amazon.com gift card!
Off topic but congratulations on the nice mention that Parterre got in the NY Times today in the article about the Wainwright Opera
My favorite opening night memory (not exactly a memory, since I was not present for it) is the ineffable photo by WeeGee of the two diamond-dripping dowagers trying to ignore the incredibly filthy and mangey bum (or whatever the corrct term for such an entity now is) as they arrived at the Old Met for opening night. What a masterpiece. It says a lot more than a thousand words, and remains fresh to this day. Now in the age of instant, easy and digital photography, perhaps somebody can come up with an iconic image for the Gelb years.
Tom and Katie arriving in coordinated LaCroix? With a sad-looking Licia Albanese Gimma slightly blurred in the background??
WeeGee photo:
WeeGee photo:
Click on “opera”:
Well, if The Great Daniel J,. Wakin has indeed become a PT lurker ,than maybe the quality of NY TIMES commentary on the local opera scene will rise.
Right, it’s his most famous image (alongside the gangaster killing and the fire). Poor lady – no bum she, but a rather harrowed looking pleb. I like the original title (The Critic), and knew neither the original image nor its complement, so thanks for linking to that.
This old comic strip has inspired me to dream of a new opera to be commissioned for some future opening night; Invisible Scarlet O’Neil–starring Renee. And classic opening nights should include the article a guy whose name now eludes me wrote of the 1915 opening–Samson..with Caruso and Matzenaur, in which the author described all the various music fans and critics who showed up for the show.
Did those two rich old ladies know that there was a war going on?
La Cieca: Will your opening night at the Met coverage be archieved so those of us attending the live HD telecast at our local theaters can enjoy a replay of your red carpeted extravaganza?
I think a tableau-vivant recreating the Weegee scene might not go amiss. You only need three willing actors/actresses…or maybe that’s tasteless bearing in mind the Trenchant Social Comment? Oh, what the hell.
Texting? From inside an opera house during a performance? Sacrilege. Are you Icelandic?
Count this queen in for the live simulcast! I will be paying extra attention to Sir Galliano’s divalicious frock…
BTW: I don’t know what can happen in three weeks but the Lincoln Center plaza is still a construction zone and the front of the Met is totally blocked and inaccessible. The only entrance to the Metropolitan Opera House as of now is down through the drive thru parking ramp on 62nd St. near Damrosch Park to the lower concourse and then up through Founders Hall. Despite assurances, I can’t image that the plaza will be open and accessible in three weeks and I hear no construction activity whatsoever going on there. I mean maybe there are two construction workers moving one little pile of gravel three feet back and forth. Maybe four but two are on break or out to lunch. Otherwise, NADA is going on. I mean the night-time construction workers who do subway repair look like energizer bunnies next to these guys – they really need a construction supervisor who will crack the whip.
The lower concourse which will be converted into a drive through lane for the parking garage is also a mess with ceiling tiles torn out and wiring and insulation exposed and doors removed. The subway entrance from the State Theater is boarded up and the one in the Met lobby is largely inaccessible from street level. I think you can still get into the subway from Avery Fisher Hall, the last to be renovated though it is in most need of it.
Despite rumors to the contrary, I really envisage the glitzy opening night crowd attempting to enter through one little door downstairs. Expect lots of complaining and grievances and very little glamor or photo opportunities – with or without social commentary.
And, believe me, if there is anyone here who keeps a very close watch on construction workers, it’s Gualtier.
Ed: please note that La Cieca does not encourage texting from inside the theater during a performance. However, the evening will include two intermission and two pauses (as the Traviata and Manon acts offer two scenes each) which leaves plenty of time for non-intrusive texting.
Being scolded by an usher during a Otello rehearsal for texting 10 minutes prior to curtain going UP was enough for me… there is only so much shaming one can take by the maroon brigade
I could supervise the construction workers and crack the whip tomorrow. It’s a question of colour and testosterone.
A little off topic (sorry again) but one of my little birdy friends just told me a rumor that Lagerfeld and Galliano have been promised their choice of operas to design sets and costumes for(complete with massive budgets and full creative control).
Perhaps this is the only reason they’re lowering their standards ( and letting out the waistlines of their couture) to accommodate Fleming).
Gelb must have written this gala into the deal.
I mean Fleming in Dior and Chanel is like Martha Stewart in Gucci and Balenciaga – It’s not RIGHT!!!!
A correspondent to cover “Frocks, Cocks and Vox” seems like a viable solution…
Vell, dorlinks, I hate to be a party poop — but rarely has so much glitz and gelt been entrusted to so slender a reed as La Renee — so here is my thought: WHO is her cover?
Heaven forbid, but what if the delicious doll gets sick? Do they call it off, or do they bring on Racette, Swenson and Voigt and — on with the show?
Voigt as La gioconda is something I am not sure I want to hear, but the Met has scheduled quite a few on Sirius so one may not escape. Oy. And one hears Elza van den Heever is off to become house soprano at Frankfurt, to learn rep and mature and all that.
Let’s hope it happens soon. The world of opera does not need *many* new dramatic spintos, but we do need SOME!I take it Radvanovsky is on the downhill slope, and it happened so soon!
(Four years ago I gave her five years of big time singing; I may have been right. I gave Voigt five years, also, about four years ago and boy was I right!
Love to you All!
Karita M.