December 2008
Here’s a gala a little further into the future but more firmly grounded in reality than tomorrow’s event for Dicapo: To purchase tickets for this concert benefiting Blue Gargoyle and its literacy programs, you can click here.
As commenter paddypig points out, something fishy seems to be going on with the Puccini 150th Anniversary Gala presented by Dicapo Opera Theatre, scheduled for this Monday night. As of this evening, the company’s website still advertises “Daniela Dessi, Fabio Armiliato, Francisco Casanova, Aprile Millo, Francesca Patané and others” even though certainly Millo is not…
Can it be a whole month since the Regie Quiz last graced the laptops of the cher public? Indeed it has, and perhaps now it is a bit anticlimactic to reveal that the operatic rarity depicted in that long-ago puzzler was Marco Polo. This one’s not a bread and butter work either, and La Cieca…
A different look at Thaïs, this time from the Teatro Regio di Torino. Thaïs: Barbara Frittoli; Athanaël: Lado Ataneli; Nicias: Alessandro Liberatore. Teatro Regio di Torino. Conductor: Gianandrea Noseda. Stage direction, design and choreography by Stefano Poda.
La Cieca hears whispers that Will Crutchfield‘s “Bel Canto at Caramoor” may be the next victim of the economic crisis. No reflection on Will (he can’t be expected to predict the future, after all), but the year the nation enters a recession is hardly the best time to try to put on Semiramide. Update: La Cieca just…
A judge ordered “felonthropist” Alberto Vilar imprisoned Thursday to await sentencing after his conviction on conspiracy fraud charges. [via Business Week]
Okay, cher public, you’ve heard the theories. Now it’s time for you to predict who’s getting the nod as new NYCO honcho/honchess.
La Cieca just received the official notice from the Metropolitan Opera that Linda Watson will sing Saturday night’s Isolde. Your doyenne has received further inside information that the Met has secretly hired an Irish white witch to break the curse on the company’s current staging of the Wagner music drama by setting ablaze the sets and costumes…
There’s a rumor that’s been sort of meandering around for the past few weeks in vague will o’ the wisp format concerning the New York City Opera. (As if anything about that company right now is anything but vague, but still…) So here goes. One of the restructuring models that La Cieca keeps hearing about…
Waltraud Meier‘s one (and probably only) Met Isolde is immortalized visually on the Met Archives site in photos by Marty Sohl.
CORRECTION: It seems that nasty curse has landed on La Cieca, too. Can you believe that your doyenne misheard the bit of gossip she relayed you a couple of hours ago? Yes, it does indeed appear Katarina Dalayman and Susan Foster are both too ill to sing the last Tristan of the season at the…
“The campy diva lover in me should exult at the credit in the program ‘Renée Fleming‘s Costumes by Christian Lacroix,’ but in fact the couturier’s frocks were something of a mishmash. Best was a shimmering gold sheath that set off Fleming’s first entrance and trim waistline to perfection; worst was a rumpled ivory silk ballgown…
UPDATE: La Cieca’s going to go out on a limb here and say that at the very least George Steel will be offered the direction of NYCO. Industry insiders are whispering that a certain impresario who recently upgraded his career from uptown new music maven to regional opera honcho may be about to prove that he is…
First opera queen: “So, you’re seeing Renée in Thaïs tonight?” Second opera queen: “Yeah, I’m leaving home early so I can stop at Thom McAn on the way.”
La Cieca’s indefatigable network of operatives has managed to track down the identity of that scrummy young cellist seen in virtually every shot of Monday night’s telecast of the 2007 Tucker Gala. The gentleman’s name is Joel Noyes and he has been a member of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra since 2002. Readers of parterre.com will…
The Met’s lastest semi-Isolde made her debut last night, as Susan Foster jumped into the third act of Wagner’s music drama. A spy at the performance reported that the supposedly recovering Katarina Dalayman sounded “SCHRECKLICH and was announced as unable to continue at the beginning of the third act … Susan Foster and proceeded to…
 La Cieca realizes that some of her younger readers (and aren’t you all?) may not remember Dr. Repertoire, La Cieca’s serious and near-pedantic colleague of the zine era. Dr. Repertoire used to answer questions about operatic roles, vocal technique and (mostly) Manuela Hoelterhoff, and so La Cieca feels he is the appropriate one to…
[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/rcmu5du2jkw” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] The troubled NYCO tries a new approach.
Watching the Richard Tucker Gala just now, La Cieca is reminded to something she said to a companion after an early Diana Damrau Met performance (Ariadne, she thinks it was.) What La Cieca said was, “Well, you can send all the others home, because we’ve found our Neely O’Hara!”
La Cieca knows that one should not judge any work by the odd snippet, but she’s going to go out on a limb here and predict that Frédéric Chaslin‘s Wuthering Heights will be the next big camp opera in the “Technicolor Twaddle” tradition of The Ghosts of Versailles and The First Emperor. Update: the videos…
La Cieca hears that Violeta Urmana fainted only an hour before tonight’s performance of Iphigénie en Tauride in Valencia. She decided to soldier on but then collapsed onstage after the interval. American soprano Jennifer Check finished the performance.
Hörst du Sie noch? Ich bin’s, ich bin’s
The season at La Scala continues under the guidance of Daniele Gatti.
Tim Ashley in the Guardian Unlimited writes: When Hansel and Gretel are out of the house, their parents (Thomas Allen and Elizabeth Connell) prepare to have sex on one of the children’s beds, and we recognise the potential for deeply inappropriate behaviour lurking behind this family’s facade. And speaking of deeply inappropriate behaviour, is Anja…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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