Headshot of La Cieca

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loose lips

La Cieca tries to be charitable, especially to members of her own gender, but she has come to the conclusion that it is time for Susan Baker to shut the hell up. NYCO’s new General Director has been chosen and is about to take office, and the more Baker yammers, the more she makes George Steel come off like an ineffectual lapdog, which goodness knows La Cieca hopes he’s not going to be. (Bad enough that some in the media are calling him “Two-Face.”) Back away from the press conferences, ma’am, and please just let your hired hand do his job.

Oh, and one other thing. If you must talk to the media (and La Cieca thinks you really mustn’t, but who listens to La Cieca?) — anyway, if you must talk to the media, please, please, please stop saying things like you hope to announce a season in mid-March. That’s just deadly, because you’ve just set yourself up for two months of will-they-or-won’t-they speculation, and then, when (as likely will happen) you don’t announce a season in mid-March, that’s yet another brick in the wall of failed NYCO promises, e.g.:

At the moment, our thinking is that if we have to be dark in the State Theater for part of the ’08-09 performance season, what we would do is have some non-traditional season in other venues,” [Baker] said.

Go on a vacation or something, Ms. Baker, but please do hush.

18 comments

  • Cassandra says:

    There will be no season announcement in March, if ever.

    She is a moron.

  • operboy says:

    The article in question was written in 2007. And NYCO is having a dark season. This is old news.

  • La Cieca says:

    operboy: The point was, Baker made this promise back in 2007, about performances in alternative venues, and nothing (or very little) came of it. So why should we credit what she has to say now?

  • jatm2063 says:

    How interesting. I’m a little surprised at our normally demure and ladylike doyenne. She rarely stoops to common evisceration such as we see above with Susan Baker. Others do of course (even occasionally myself).

    I LOVE IT!

  • operboy says:

    La Cieca. Not true. NYCO did have performances in different venues. Concerts, not full productions. And unusual fare like Messiaen. Did you go to the one in that fabulous theatre in Staten Island? And there is the Vox (new operas) Series coming up. Perhaps not.

    Perhaps it is not the facts that are the issue here, but rather La Femme de boulanger making statements which the mighty man of Steel (or was that Mickey Mouse) should be saying.

    On that we do agree.

  • Ian says:

    Baker has to go- how the board can have confidence in a chair who has mangled this whole process so badly is beyond me.

  • operboy says:

    How? The answer it simple. Money talks. La boulanger gives NYCO a million a year.

  • Aida Lottapasta says:

    The math is simple – NYCO has lost more money than Baker has donated as a result of decisions for which she has been responsible. The net result of her influence on the company has been strongly negative cash flow. That the Board has not removed her in inexcusable.