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  • papopera: thank you. looking forward to six o'clock
  • Will: I think the reasoning here is that these productions of what...
  • Nerva Nelli: Apparently Billingsgate has Ingrid Steger and Carol Yahr sta...
  • grimoaldo: Good lord. I find that somewhat sad. Why are they having ope...
  • oedipe: Well, I have -at last- seen the infamous Paris Opera Mano...
  • Donna Anna: Anna Russell, thou shouldst be living at this hour but since...
  • Batty Masetto: Oh. I thought Croche was calling dibs on Agathon in a comple...
  • Will: Casting note: Glimmerglass has announced that opposite Dwayn...
  • Straussmonster: I want to be Alcibiades, especially if I can come in late, a...
  • Superconductor: Considering that the Metropolitan Opera press office is noto...

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Harmony of contrasts

SPIDERMAN-MUSICALLa Cieca wonders if the horrific accident during last night’s performance of the Spider-Man musical (which promises to re-open Wednesday night with “additional safety protocols“) reminds you of, well, anything familiar?  Read more »

Lady in distress

wrayUPDATE: Thanks to the generosity of a member of the cher public who wishes to remain anonymous, a ticket has been obtained for the parterre reviewer! Read more »

Yule logging in

cieca_holidays_2010La Cieca wishes a festive and safe (if such a combination is possible) holiday season to all the cher public, who in turn are invited to offer each other such greetings in the comments below. Read more »

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Words without song

Long ago, in a galaxy far away – I mean, the era before supertitles became common in opera houses around the world – you could always tell the text-mad opera fan.  He was the one who arrived early to the theater and spent the remaining minutes to curtain hunched over his libretto booklet, trying to cram as much of the libretto as he could into his head before the curtain went up, so he could (hopefully) follow along with the words as they were sung.  Some text divas even brought pen lights with them so they could follow along with [...]

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The art of the rhetorical question

“Faye Dunaway‘s Master Class Movie: What The Hell Happened?” [Michael Musto]

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“Je suis heureux ici”

“The decades-overdue debut of Sir Simon Rattle at the Met Friday night demonstrated brilliantly just what we’ve been missing: His conducting of Pelléas et Mélisande is the musical pinnacle of the season.” [New York Post]

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Author! Author!

La Cieca is simply overjoyed to announce a handy and fascinating innovation at parterre.com: The Author Archive Page. Each of your doyenne’s stable of scribes will be assigned his and/or her own unique page where every story under that byline will be easily accessible—as, for example, the many and wondrous reviews of Ercole Farnese. Look for the link to the archive on the author’s name in the byline of the story (immediately beneath the headline) and may this new feature bring you hours of reading enjoyment, cher public!

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The sea was angry that day, my friends

It’s a sad story, really. Debussy and Maeterlinck had what the kids would call Major Drama over who was to sing Melisande (Mary Garden vs. the person you’ve never heard of) and so Maeterlinck didn’t see Pelleas until years after Debussy had died, so he never got to be like “word!” or, I suppose, “mot!” 

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