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Cher Public

  • Buster: We get Edith Haller in L’Upupa soon, with John Mark Ainsley ...
  • La Valkyrietta: Of course that was Eileen Farrell singing for Eleanor Parker...
  • Indiana Loiterer III: I don't know whether she deserves another award, but no doub...
  • Quanto Painy Fakor: If course people who sing at the MET pay for private coachin...
  • La Valkyrietta: There does not seem to be her Ernani Involami in youtube. ...
  • kashania: Oh, I'm leaving for a week's vacation today. Sorry to miss ...
  • That Guy: "Heard" is an overstatement, at least based on the one perfo...
  • grimoaldo: I noticed a couple of comments expressing surprise that toni...
  • kashania: Does that mean that Fleming will be semi-fake-acting?
  • grimoaldo: Siegfried will be Jay Hunter Morris who replaced the replace...

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A Ring is Born

mumford_starTamara Mumford (Flosshilde in Das Rheingold) explains the concept of the Met’s new production of the Ring.   Read more »

Separated after midnight

patsy_birgitCountry wailer Patsy Cline and ex-farmgirl Birgit NilssonRead more »

The Quantification of the Diva: Upon Reflection

Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera“Mirror, mirror on the wall, who are the greatest divas (Classic and Contemporary) of them all?”

And the mirror replied, “I’ll tell you right after the jump!” Read more »

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Brassy, breezy blind items

Which American intendant (who’s straight, by the way) is about to change his anthem from one Judy Garland encore to another? And, speaking of “Over the Rainbow,” which final high-tech special effect of which very expensive new production reportedly failed to work at the (closed) dress rehearsal?

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Box on boxes

Now available on Amazon.com: James Levine: Celebrating 40 Years at the Met – CD Box Set and James Levine: Celebrating 40 Years at the Met – DVD Box Set, as recently reviewed on parterre.com.

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More than a Kunstdiva

Parterre Contemporary Diva finalist Cecilia Bartoli has added another hat to already extensive headgear wardrobe: artistic director of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival.  Her first project: Handel’s Giulio Cesare in 2012. [Washington Post]

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The Quantification of the Diva: Part the Fourth

As we launch into the fourth and final movement of our étude, La Cieca asks the musical question, “Can a Contemporary Diva achieve Grandezza, or, for that matter, Drag Imitability?” Let’s see what the numbers tell us. 

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Immer ist Undank Fartnoses Lohn!

La Cieca’s newest and nicest trickster god Fartnose McGoo (pictured) attended a lecture at the Met tonight introducing the new production of Das Rheingold. After the jump, some of his observations.

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