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  • 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...
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  • papopera: who is the SIEGFRIED tonight is voiceless Voigt confirmed ??...

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She Dodon him wrong

Our Doyenne demonstrated her omniscience once again by sending me a DVD of Rimsky Korsakov’s Le Coq d’Or (Zolotoy Petushok) to review.  I’m with musicologist Richard Taruskin who stated that Rimsky Korsakov was “perhaps the most underrated composer of all time” (and I’m sure his editor insisted on including the “perhaps”).  Read more »

Soap opera

A live webcast of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw from Glyndebourne may divert the parterrians this afternoon. The event commences at 12:45, with a place to discuss the proceedings at La Casa della Cieca.

I hear American singing

Since an early appearance as Schaunard in Baz Luhrmann’s Broadway La bohème, barihunk Daniel Okulitch has been steadily building a substantial career. Along with noteworthy performances as Don Giovanni in New York and Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro in Los Angeles, much of his career has been centered on contemporary work. He has leading roles in such high profile premieres as Howard Shore’s The Fly (in Paris and L.A.), Peter Ash’s The Golden Ticket (St. Louis), and Pasatieri’s Frau Margot under his belt and is now singing Abdul in Menotti’s The Last Savage in Santa Fe which Anthony Tommasini admired not only for his “warm singing” but for his “fit physique.” Read more »

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Not too distant

Though Brad Wilber‘s lamented site is no more, opera gossip refuses to die. For example, La Cieca has just heard that for an upcoming opening night at the Metropolitan Opera a beloved and (that word again!) charismatic tenor will return to the house after a six season absence. So now you know more or less  when, all you have to figure out is where, oh where.

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Charismatic movement

Friend of the Box Zachary Woolfe follows up his provocative NYT article on charisma with an invitation to discuss this elusive quality with his cher public, a group of which La Cieca is sure you parterriani represent a significant subset. Let yourselves be heard!

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“Die Lage” darf ich nicht heissen

“Der Tenor Jonas Kaufmann… Im FOCUS-Online-Interview spricht er über Politik, Yoga und die Gründe, warum Sänger kein Sixpack haben.”

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Miss Mannered

Joyce DiDonato enjoys the rare cachet of having three studio-recorded operas released in the past three years while other famous divas must be content with “just” DVDs. Although two of Renée Fleming’s Violettas have found their way onto video in less than five years (why??), “the people’s diva” has only recorded one studio opera in the past decade—Strauss’s Daphne—released back in 2006.

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Love, love and love!

Jummy Jonas Kaufmann and awe-inspiring Anna Netrebko team for the great duet from Manon, as heard last night at the Waldbühne Berlin.

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