Opera composer Rufus Wainwright sings Berlioz.
It’s been nearly a month since the last spurt of news about the New York City Opera, which, for those of you with not particularly long memories, is or was an opera company just off to the side of the Met at Lincoln Center.Â
Well, now the first big story of March has crossed La Cieca’s desk. Renovations to the Koch Theater will include two side aisles in the orchestra section of seating, which means latecomers will now have only one dozen pairs of feet to tread upon instead of the former hundred. The re-aisling will eliminate about 200 seats from the theater, reducing the capacity to 2,576 including standing room and spaces for patrons with disabilities.
In the meantime, George Steel is already hard at work charming the socks off Justin Davidson in the current New York magazine. ( “Like President Obama, Steel is plunging into a crisis with a record that is promising but thin.”) For those of you still following along, The Man of Steel promises a season announcement “to be announced in the next few weeks,” so La Cieca will reset her NYCO doomsday clock to mid-April at the very earliest.
La Cieca offers her congratulations to fellow gossipmonger Perez Hilton, who has scooped the world with a story about Rufus Wainwright‘s opera Prima Donna, due for a world premiere production in… oh, wait a minute. Did La Cieca say “scooped the world?” What she meant to say was, “picked up on the story a mere seven months after it was broken on parterre.com.” Nice work, Perez!
Anyone listening to “The Pizza Boy Always Delivers Twice” tonight? La Cieca has just logged on in time for Alfio’s entrance, which means Waltraud Meier has a good deal of singing coming up in the next half hour or so.
Our Own JJ reports on the Met’s 125th Anniversary Shindig in the New York Post.
Renée Fleming, known as “The Beautiful Voice” and “Diva of the Future,” has won a new whaddyacallit, a new, uh, sobriquet. Courtesy of commenter Camille, Ms. Fleming will henceforth be known as “Opera MILF.” (At last night’s 125th Anniversary Gala, La Fleming rocked “a costume based on the one worn by Maria Jeritza for [Die Tote Stadt's] U.S. premiere in 1921. Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera.) More photos from the gala may be found on the Met’s website.
La Cieca (not pictured) invites you, cher public, to listen to the broadcast of the Met’s 125th Anniversary Gala (on Sirius or RealNetworks) and comment to your heart’s content! The (projected) program is availabe as a pdf from the Met’s website.
Friends of the box have asked La Cieca to inform you that they have two tickets for today’s 125th Anniversary Gala for sale, row C orchestra, $400 each. If you’re interested, call 646-266-8423 and ask for Siciliano. (That’s his name.)
Cher Public