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No, no, no, no way!

fleming_thais_thumbLa Cieca has a new favorite thing.

It’s called Tubedubber, and what it does is it allows you to mix the video from one YouTube clip with the audio (soundtrack) from another.

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Wunder Bär

Stefan-Herheim
A snippet of the Berlin Lohengrin directed by Stefan Herheim, who is rapidly becoming one of La Cieca’s favorite Regisseurs!  Read more »

To be sure, it’s been only nine years, but it certainly feels much longer

duck_dodgers

“In addition to her work on stage and in recordings, Renée Fleming has represented Rolex timepieces in print advertising since 2001. Master Chef Daniel Boulud has created the dessert ‘La Diva Renée’ (1999) in her honor, and she has inspired the ‘Renée Fleming Iris’ (2004), which has been replicated in porcelain by Boehm. Read more »

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Manolo blah nixed

“Important warning: Covent Garden is marketing this as a family show for Christmas, but please don’t think of taking the children – they’ll be bored rigid and never want to go anywhere near an opera again.” With The Tsarina’s Slippers Francesca Zambello‘s nonstop string of successes just keeps on stringing along! [Telegraph]

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Of dodos and dildos

After seeing a video excerpt from the Met’s Patrice Chéreau production of From the House of the Dead, I was struck by the cleanness of it all, the sets, the costumes, the tastefully muted colors, and the direction. No doubt it is moving, in its way, but is it relevant? It looks like generic suffering in a nameless prison far, far away — in time, especially. In contrast, Calixto Bieito’s production of this opera at Oper Basel is more Gitmo than Gulag, more Sing Sing than Solovki, more Riker’s Island than Russian camp. 

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Ether or

La Cieca is delighted to announce the 2009-2010 Saturday afternoon broadcast season brought to you by the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera Radio Network, beginning December 12. For each of these broadcasts, La Cieca will host (or at least leave the doors open for) a chat amongst the cher public.  

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Postcard from Brabant

On the heels of this, may I direct everyone’s attention to a funny and fascinating article about Stefan Herheim‘s production of Lohengrin from last spring at Berliner Staatsoper? Now we know what to do with those old costumes and sets that gather dust! [via the wellsungs]

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And I am telling you I am not belting

“Since the 1918 premiere of Puccini’s Il Trittico, only two divas at the Met dared to sing the leading roles in all three of its one-act operas: Renata Scotto, a supreme vocal stylist, and Teresa Stratas, a magnetic singing actress. On Friday, Patricia Racette, who is not quite either of these things, took the plunge.” [NY Post]

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