La Cieca would be fascinated to find out how you did it, Hoffmann. However did you guess that last week’s Regie quiz in fact portrayed Rusalka — as envisioned by that new parterre darling Stefan Herheim for Oper Graz! Read more »
Don’t say that! No one is alone for the weekly chat during the Saturday Met broadcast!
Today the performance is Elektra, starting at 1:00 pm. Read more »
“I will have more to say on this question later.” So, three weeks ago, Anthony Tommasini left open the subject of how “[n]one of the versions of [Les Contes d'Hoffmann] that have appeared over the years, some of them corrupted, can be said to be authentic.” The Times scribe has at last broken his silence, though La Cieca will leave it up to the reader to decide whether he actually has “more to say.” [NYT]
“A Zeffirelli, dopo le polemiche della vigilia che lo hanno opposto al soprano Daniela Dessì, da lui ritenuta non giusta per il ruolo di Violetta in questa Traviata, qualche dissenso misto agli applausi al momento di comparire in proscenio assieme a Gelmetti.” [Il Messaggero]
So La Cieca was thinking back, what with the end of the oughts and all, and she found herself wondering how parterre.com has changed in the past ten years. Here’s a screenshot of the site (not yet a blog) circa December 1999, and what nostalgia to think of the days when we still used “frames!” (About the faux-brick background image, perhaps the less said the better.)
Tonight’s Hoffmann at the Met is conducted by John Keenan, but it’s not a(nother) James Levine cancellation. Of the nine performances of the Offenbach opera this season, Maestro Jimmy was always scheduled to do only six; the other were “TBA” until the season began. With his cancellation of of the December 16 performance, of course, he is down to five nights to Keenan’s four — assuming a return as scheduled for the final Hoffmann on January 2. Warning: there’s math after the jump.
La Cieca reminds the cher public: you still have one week to come up with a top ten list about the decade from the beginning of 2000 to the end of 2009, with the winner taking home a $100 Amazon gift card.
“Three cast changes have been made for tonight’s performance of Les Contes d’Hoffmann due to illness. Rachele Gilmore will make her Met debut replacing Kathleen Kim in the role of Olympia. Laura Vlasek Nolan replaces Ekaterina Gubanova as Giulietta. Joel Sorensen sings the roles of the four servants – Andrès, Frantz, Cochenille, and Pitichinaccio – replacing Alan Oke.” [The Met]
Cher Public