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.