Ceci n’est pas un commentaire
Cher public, don’t write comments like this one:
“As heard on the web yesterday, the singing was mediocre at best. But does that matter anymore?”
Why not?
Here’s why. Because that kind of comment is boring, predictable, useless. There are a lot of you who have very interesting things to say, from 3,000 word analyses to two-word one-liners. All those comments are more than welcome. What La Cieca doesn’t want to read is yet another expression of just how dreadfully bored and listless you are. Because talking about being bored, meanwhile expressing yourself in a boring way, is, frankly, boring.
So if what you’re about to post really sounds boring to you, please think twice, and at the very least try to sound entertaining, even if you can’t quite bring yourself to sound entertained.
Carry on.
If you get too picky and difficult to please you’re going to drive away a lot of faithful followers. Do you prefer to be feared or to be loved?
I don’t see this housekeeping as completely new or unreasonable. I’ve only been here since late spring but La Cieca has often asked commenters to “show their work,” which I take to mean that if you have praise or complaint, offer evidence to back it up.
Crack that whip Cieca!
La Cieca, keep doing the good work. Some comments defy common sense, even for non-musically trained people like myself. One of the great surgeons in an Ivy League hospital, addressing surgical residents, said: “To be an SOB in the opreting room is not nice, but it helps!” Love exploited leads to anarchy and contempt, but love laced with a little fear leads to respect and bonding. God bless La Cieca!
parterre has a high readership so I guess La Cieca has the luxury of possibly offending a few to improve the overall content of the site. Predictable and blanket dismissals appear quite regularly on this site, and frankly, they don’t add anything to the conversation. Aside from giving an air superiority, all they do is create a cynical environment (incidentally, that’s one reason why I don’t like the live chat formats because they can be hijacked by these kinds of comments). So, I applaud our doyenne for encouraging particpants to strive for something better. We should also remember that our hostess has been very generously lately by inviting members of the cher public to contribute content to the site. So, if the end result is a few pissed-off people who don’t come back but an overall elevation of the quality of the discourse, then I’m all for it.
Love it. LOL
I’m in agreement with everything but the belief that there is really anything other than an air of superiority intended by the sort of blanket dismissals we’re talking about.
I do find an irony that the person who almost single-handedly created the nastiness that exemplifies online operatic blogging is now being Miss Manners. Perhaps a nod to the attempt to become a mainstream reporter and cultural affairs correspondent? The cat-fights were always the most appealing part of coming here (filth), particularly between the host and that dreadful playwright. I have the greatest respect for the insights into the art form of the host, but find the recent attempts at censorship unfortunate.
This is like running for the senate, if you want a clean record, you better get rid of the archives.
Catfights are more than welcome. What Miss Manners, er, La Cieca objects to are snoozefests. You know how Tim Gunn says, “Don’t bore Nina?”
Well, think of La Cieca as Nina, and take it from there.
Oh dear! The demands! I don’t know what this is all about. I don’t know what the opera is. In any case, how can anyone be bored waiting for “la nuit d’amour, la nuit d’ivresse”?
Thank you for the entertaining clarification.
Come to think of it, alternative titles for this thread could have included ‘I’m concerned’ and of course ‘Make it work’.
God bless Nina. I want that t-shirt.
How could anyone possibly be bored around here!??
If La Cieca looks anything like Nina Garcia, then she must be one fine tranny!!!!
Oderint dum metuant, as they say.
To carry on in the same vein as the title of this thread – put some (Ma)grit(te) in your posts please.
re la nuit d’ivresse – anybody as taken w/ Gardiner/Graham etc Berlioz Les Troyens as moi? with dance it seems better paced and more exquisitely sensual than others without – and re tempo, those Armide excerpts on the hoped for Met revival list wither on the vine before you get to taste that gorgeous piece. How ’bout some long-term pacing in these lyric tragedies instead of ‘each aria for himself’? enough grit or too much gripe?
La Cieca is a beautiful as Heidi Klum.
I’m afraid I’m bored with productions, pardonez moi ma deese la Cieca. I saw the little clip on youtube with the Met’s Hoffmann and was bored. As a matter of fact, I’m bored thinking of what they might come up with the Cirque Ring in the future. I’m bored with the puppets in Butterfly. I’m bored with the photographer in Lucia. I’m bored withe the Flatiron Sonnambula. Give me an old bare Greek theatre with the chorus singing Euripides and I’m excited. Give me a nice XIXth century theatre with a great conductor, a few portly figures that sing like angers, some sets painted suggesting whatever and a great conductor and I’m excited. The Trovatore in Venice at the start of Visconti’s ‘Senso’ is to me the most superb opera production possible. Show me an Adriana set in a Little Shop of Horrors and I’m horrified Gelb might see it too and get ideas even for Parsifal. All clever opera directors should be sent to Devil’s island as far as I’m concerned. But yes, after all this rant, I admit I have tickets to Hoffmann and look forward to it. Does anyone have any idea what they will do with Carmen?
Flatiron in La Sonnambula? I saw it several times and I don’t recall that. Refresh my memory.
Yes, La Cieca. You are right. But you know, if the people you are talking about — and we know who they are — did not have this outlet, I fear their issues would be acted out in even more unhealthy ways.
La Cieca — just a little shout out to the late great Madeline Kahn. (We all know where she is!) That wonderful picture of her as Lili von Schtupp, the Teutonic Tit-Willow, always brings tears to my eyes. She is so very badly missed! Has anyone ever really been able to bring so many layers of humor(and sadness) to one single moment or image? Madeline, I will always love you. Thanks for everything.
mandryka: I smirk seeing such loaded comment (I quote you )….”But you know, if the people you are talking about — and we know who they are” (end)
Jeezz, it is the inclusive stuff of catty schoolgirls then stating “And you are not going to find our either!”
It implies the smugness of being so superior -minded and ‘all -knowing’ Well let’s see what usually starts the problem, when people get bored here. Usually when there is a hiatus on reported opera happenings. Even then, let’s get things into proportion. The MET is not the be -all or end -all of Opera. So some singer has never sung there…big deal!. It is a house that wants to represent the best…no doubt about that. To try and achieve that in today’s world and run its constant changing large program, it is really a fly- in fly- out star based system.
If I may crudely say it is ‘The Las Vegas of Opera! Lack of preparation on anyone’s part: reputations based far & wide, tend to crash and burn in such a type of spotlight. With the trend for a new look MET, towards more controversial stagings using ’shot in the dark hiring’ of newer wave directors, the stakes for various peoples’ careers & reputations will in the future , become more acute. An invitation to sing at the MET might just be viewed by some singers as ‘a poisoned chalice’. To any outsider, the artist cancellation rate appears phenomenal, even for opera singers. Then all the ‘duck shoving of covers / some understudy onto the stage starts’ as it is so quickly reported here. Imagine a normal business trying to work under such a situation.
Yet we see here amongst some, an almost snide feeling that if singers have not appeared at the MET they are therefore to be considered second rate. I take a reverse view in many cases. They probably do not want to be involved in all the ructions and hassle, associated with it. Thereby set about having a nice career elsewhere with greater chances of appreciation and ‘where they feel things, are more in control’.
And it’s ten years today. Always remembered with affection.
Some might have tickets to Hoffmann….I have something better…. a ticket to seeing Teddy Tahu Rhodes getting down, dirty and steamy as Stanley K., in Previn’s Streetcar.
Who is this Valkyrietta person? How dare she make these outrageous suggestions that happen to be the very things I would have said, and has even seen my favorite little-known operatic film? Is she my doppelganger or the person who sneaks to the computer when I think I’m asleep?
Just asking.
That is the Flatiron District if not the building out those windows, Mandryka. This explains why, on there being a flash blizzard, though the entire cast has no trouble getting home by subway, the visiting baritone is unable to reach his hotel all of twenty blocks away and is forced to sack out in the rehearsal hall. At least, it explains the matter to Mary (Zar und) (thank you Sanford) Zimmerman’s satisfaction. I don’t recall anyone else being remotely satisfied with that production.
You saw it SEVERAL times? I’ve heard of gluttons for punishment, but you have an absolute avarice for the stuff.
Teddy Tahu Rhodes is so good a singer and actor that he makes an impression on stage while fully clothed. Nathan Gunn cannot make that statement.
But if I’m ever obliged to see Previn’s Streetcar again, a full cast of Colt models and the Blanche going down on me in the delivery boy scene won’t make it worth the waste of time.
wait…. Parsifal set in a little shop of horrors? with a man eating plant? that’s genius!!
-Peter Gelb
La Valkyrietta, I love you.
You have invoked the shade of Visconti and that fabuloso opening scene of Trovatore which I felt I alone loved to that extreme degree.
Shall we repair to the anfiteatro at Taormina?
Let us take along mon vieux cheri, M. Hanslick as well. La-bas, mes freres, we will never suffer from ennui.
But I am an a philistine Hans Lick. I adore Streetcar’s music.
Although (to be pedantic) that scene was invented by Visconti – during the years in which Senso takes place, La Fenice was closed – the aristocrats who owned the theater refused to permit performances when Austria refused to give up Venetia after the war of 1859. (per W.D. Howells splendid book of Italian memories – he was U.S. consul in Venice during this period.)
… ergo party to pleasures I defy. You go, girl! Us snooty wallflowers seldom get to dance.