Headshot of La Cieca

Cher Public

  • 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...
  • Matthew: I'm just enjoying imagining the parallel universe where "hon...
  • Camille: "FIFTY DOLLARS?!?!?!!!!" - for an opera ticket. What an out...
  • Camille: The great Giorgio Tozzi, a paragon of virtues, siinging my h...
  • papopera: who is the SIEGFRIED tonight is voiceless Voigt confirmed ??...

blog advertising is good for you

Intermission feature

Here’s the place, cher public, where you can talk about anything that enters your pretty little heads during the first week of August.

Car men

Following the jump, about 45 minutes of highlights from last week’s telecast of Bizet’s opera from the Gran Teatre del Liceu, as sung by Fabio Armiliato, Béatrice-Uria Monzon, Maria Bayo and Kyle Ketelsen, directed by Calixto Bieito. Read more »

The elite prepare to meet

Where has the time gone? La Cieca was just reminded this morning that on Tuesday the 2012 recipients of the F. Paul Driscoll Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence (aka The Opera News Award) will be named. Though your doyenne has no details yet about which lucky opera types are to be lauded this year, the impending news does give her an idea.  Read more »

Read more »

Give until it hurts

Sadly reduced to penury by music fans illegally downloading his music, the once-mighty Placido Domingo has resorted to whoring himself out to a recording industry organization whose noble purpose is to assure that sleazy A&R people continue to afford top-quality cocaine and hookers hard-working artists will receive just compensation for their work. Well, the legendary tenor has to keep busy after all, and apparently in the middle of worldwide recesssion nobody seems to think it’s a good idea to give him another opera company to run into the ground. [Bloomberg]

Read more »

Read more »

Pure chat

The Bayreuth repertory continues today with a revival of the final triumph of the Wolfgang era, Parsifal in the production by Stefan Herheim, conducted by Daniele Gatti. The broadcast begins at 10:00 AM EDT on a variety of stations detailed at Operacast. Naturally La Casa della Cieca will be open for comments and especially questions.

Read more »

Read more »

One-eyed item

You won’t need three guesses for this one: Which impresario has declared himself needful of a “ghost director” to repair an otherwise hopelessly shattered project?

Read more »

Read more »

Mousecapades

Today’s episode of “Live from the Bayreuth Festival,” is the revival of Hans Neuenfels‘ rat-infested Lohengrin, a production most memorable last summer for the quicksilver conducting of Andris Nelsons, also returning this season. The broadcast proper begins at 10:00 AM EDT. For a list of web stations offering this program, go to Operacast, and naturally La Casa della Cieca will be open for comments, though obviously no questions will be allowed.

Read more »

Read more »

His Meister’s Voice

This morning, live from the Bayreuth Festival, the season premiere of Katharina Wagner‘s controversial production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. The broadcast proper begins at 10:00 AM EDT. For a list of web stations offering this program, go to Operacast, and naturally La Casa della Cieca will be open for any Markers who care to comment.

Read more »