Which summer festival, barely an hour north of Manhattan, will offer as its opera performances in the summer of 2012 Rossini’s Ciro in Babilonia (with Ewa Podles, Jessica Pratt and Michael Spyres) and Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi (with Kate Aldrich, Eglise Gutierrez and Leonardo Capalbo)?
“An atomic explosion kicked off the last act of Gounod’s Faust Tuesday at the Met, but the production as a whole was more dud than bomb.” [New York Post]
La Cieca (illustration courtesy of the Wall Street Journal) invites you, the cher public, to enjoy a chat tonight during the prima of Gounod’s Faust from the Met. Read more »
At one time, the idea of a performance of La Gioconda conjured up images of over-the-top, competitive, passionate vocalism, and big personalities. As a vehicle for great singers (and especially a great protagonist), it was thrilling.
Nicely readable profile of Jonas Kaufmann in the Wall Street Journal today, but how come it’s illustrated with a drawing of Neil Diamond?
It’s kind of shocking, when you really think about it, that the kind of international operatic model that the Royal Opera now operates on barely existed only 50 years ago. Until around 1960 most of the performances at the Covent Garden were given in English and the casting choices were enough to make the Vicar of Wakefield hyperventilate with glee.
Leave it to those Torontonians to blow the lid off an opera story happening in New York! (Goodness knows the local journalists don’t bother.) Did you know that Des McAnuff has been jetting between New York and the west coast, simultaneously directing Faust and Jesus Christ Superstar respectively? Or that future Met seasons will include a Robert Lepage production of The Tempest and McAnuff’s Falstaff? We really do need to get those deucedly clever Canadians cracking on that Citigroup settlement story! [Toronto.com]
La Cieca’s looking for a few good commenters to join the exalted ranks of parterre reviewers of new CD and DVD releases. Care to apply? Read on after the jump.
Cher Public