It’s an honor just to be nominated
La Cieca is happy to announce that voting season has begun for the 2010 first annual parterre box awards for excellence and repugnance in operatic production and performance during the 2009-2010 season.
And now, here’s your chance to choose among this year’s nominees for the “Lorgnette d’Or.”
Please vote for one nominee in each category.
The polls will remain open until Wednesday, May 19 at noon. At that time La Cieca will tally the votes and announce the winners of the coveted “Lorgnette d’Or.” In the meantime, members of the cher public are encouraged to suggest worthy recipients of honorary “Lorgnettes d’Or” such categories as “Lifetime Achievement,” “Service Above and Beyond the Call of Fach,” and “Why the Hell Not.”
Until then, vote early and often!
For once I agree with wladek 100% , in re Ewa Podles. She’s also singing at the Paris Operas this year, and in San Diego next.
Its just that moron Jonathan Friend who can’t hear the possibilities and has deprived the Met of decade of her services. But of course Patricia Payne deserved precedence!
What’s she singing in San Diego? I didn’t see anything on their web site?
Not next season but I believe late next year: LA FILLE DU REGIMENT.
She was a phenomenal Zia Principessa in Suor Angelica in SF last year. It is a shame that she hasn’t sung more in the U.S.
Patricia Payne sang precisely eleven performances at the Met, all of them prior to Podles’ debut in 1984. But why let the facts get in the way of a good bit of xenophobia?
Hold on!Might you be confusing the late Patricia Payne,Kiwi contralto, with the very alive Patricia Bardon,the very much alive Irish contralto,soon to be Erda in the Met Ring.
I think Nerva’s point, such as it was, is that Podles in her prime was kept out of the Met by Friend, in favour of the likes of Payne.
The fact that Payne sang eleven performances when Podles was 30 is an inconvenient truth as far as this theory is concerned.
Yeah, I don’t think Payne is the stick to beat the Met with regarding Podles. As AJ notes, Payne came and went before Podles even arrived at the Met. And truthfully, when Podles did first sing at the Met in 1984, a bit after Payne’s Met career was over, she was by no means the powerhouse she became later. I saw one of her two in house Rinaldo’s it was a promising performance
but not really more than that.
I agree that the dynamic duo in Met casting really fucked up with Podles, but not at this early point in Podles’ career.
Wonders will never cease !!! and it is
all due to Podles ,who probably still
is a this stage of her life the greatest
exponent of pure singing to come
down the pike, as her latest Haydn and recital at Wigmore bear out .That she is not a phony glamour queen works against her for some dim wits running opera houses -
Quick, we must form a posse and rescue Wladek. He has been overpowered by some alien life form who writes cogently and doesn’t even divide his sentences into little half-line chunks. Ooohhh, wurra wurra, what’s a body to do?
It’s not an alien life form – it’s the transformative power of true art.
And with that, Havfrauen hurls herself into the sea. Moments later, her soul is seen clasped in the arms of Wladek as both rise beatifically into the mists — in some productions. In others, they hurl water balloons at each other and then crawl into a horse’s anus. It’s all the same thing.
Actually “HavFRAUEN” is my German sister, I don’t do drama.
“Ooohhh, wurra wurra, what’s
a body to do? ” – be less
pretentious would be a good start.
And put the little mirror away .
Betsy: You might send your little mirror to those who need it a lot worse than you do. Pretentiousness might be discovered closer to home than some people think.
321.1.1 “it all might be the same thing” . Considering where your
mirror was, could you be viewing
the true you ? and if so ,can anything
you have to say mean much- especially from that end point of view.now we can’t tell which end is the true you.Can it be one and the same ?
Precisely, Wladek. How can one tell? If I — or you — depend only on what we are told by others, then we are at the mercy of where they hold their mirror, nicht war?
33.1 – Brings to mind the case of
the poor soul who accidently swallowed his glass eye -and ever
after suffered from always having
two points of view and people
who often see two points of
view see nothing.
Ah, I understand. You mean he saw from both his head and from his gut. But wouldn’t that mean he saw twice as much than most people? Or is it because when he saw things through his belly button he say only the inside of his shirt, which would result in a mere fabrication of the real world.
But if he swallowed his glass eye, which would have been an unseeing-eye to begin with, he still had his good eye in his head which would have meant everything was just as it had been. Did you know this fellow personally or is this an apochryphal tale intended for our edification?
Sorry ‘say’ = ‘saw’
I would give Sam Ramey a Lifetime Award considering that this was his last Met season.
Where is this confirmed? What about his young son he wants to send to college?
Probably his last season too.
I love Ramey, but I think he overstayed his welcome.
331.1.1.1 – I doubt if any tale could
be directed towards your edification
you’re to busy being clever . It
is unfortunate that originality is missing
in all this cleverness . I was hoping
for better. Guess Cruikshank had
the opera world down pat .
Oh, don’t give up hope, Wladek. Just don’t expect originality from me. I write only to amuse myself and to match what I think with the thoughts of others. And since everything in my head is a digestion of what I have read, heard, and experienced there is scant chance it will be original. I leave that to my betters, of whom there are many.
…betters, of whom there are many. True and not true. Considering that there are 6 Billion of us, there is a lot of undiscovered talent out there. In discovered talent, those with experience and insight (whether you add one or two Ls to it when adding “ful”, typo or not)you do not have to yield place to many.
On the other hand, Johnny One Notes with incohernat diatribes might castigate cleverness but it sure beats being too dull to catch on and, when handled by someone who is very good at it, such as yourself, it leads to quicker comprehension and better understanding.
Theres something not right for this quiz
It feels like a desperate attempt to nominate someone, anyone at all…to save face. The MET ‘ghosts of past performers there’, must be having a good laugh in the meantime.
Bittersweet as “champion” for BetsyAB
warms ones heart except that BAB
can take care of BAB quite well, without lame outsider help who think cleverness and creative thought are
one and the same .” On the other
hand” history bears out that it is
mainly the Johnny one notes that have
always changed the world whether for
good or not so good .” On the other
hand “the world is full 9th. rate wits
who fancy themselves descendants
of Wilde ,all clever but without his
profound insights , and who label blunt
observation as incoherent diatribe. I
suppose it all depends on whose ox is being gored .
Best villain category!! James Morris (Lulu), Bryn Terfel (Tosca), Philip Langridge (H&G), Andrei Popov (Nose), Thomas Hampson (Traviata – Germont is kind of a villain, right? And this performance needs a nomination for something, n’est-ce pas?), Stephanie Blythe (Trittico)