Encouraging young things to grow
La Cieca has just reviewed the parterre circulation numbers and she is delighted and not a little perplexed to note that the day of the Great Opera News Kerfuffle provided our site with the highest number of pageviews in history, a total of 33,565 views in the 24 hours of Tuesday May 22. Thanks to this story and the WQXR drama a few weeks earlier, parterre is on track for its busiest month ever.
And speaking of the Recent Unpleasantness, the excellent Billevesées brings some insider knowledge to the ongoing discussion, specifically the relationship among the Met, the Guild and Opera News.
Congrats, divina Cieca!!! Though it has nothing to do with the Kerfuffle, you can add Mom to your legion of fans. An avid Met in HD fan in San Antonio, she turned to you for the most updated opera news. As she puts it, “I don’t always understand what they’re saying, but I’m catching on!”
I am also a new member and that is EXACTLY how I feel!
Mighty impressive.
Bravo!
I always knew Signor Giallo would be good for something.
Tu sei giaaaaaaallo. Come un moooooooorto!
“Dunque--VADA!”
Just out of curiosity, Camille, why are you telling me not to eat bananas? Seems an odd sort of advice on this site.
I never said that, Ma’am!
Bananas are an excellent, convenient, and natural source of potassium, so useful, and so necessary for hot climates. Why, I just picked myself up a bunch of organic Chiquitas the other day!
Enjoy them while they last Camille, as unfortunately bananas are unlikely long for this earth thanks to Tropical Race 4. Which is only so successful because we managed to breed almost every banana type except Cavendish into commercial insignificance (from memory, Cavendish are less likely to bruise and ripen off the plant, making them ideal for transport).
So in conclusion, Gelb hates opera.
For a moment I thought that was going to be Rufus’ discarded aria from Prima Donna, Oh! C’est la banane que j’adore.
Thank you La C for posting the link to Mr. Madison’s blog. A new discovery for me, and another voice of reason. Congrats on the stats, as well.
Yellow Man’s gonna be jealous of those numbers, well deserved for La Cieca!
I enjoyed reading about William Madison and his blog. Is he still a go-go-boy somewhere? His authorized biography of Madeline Kahn should be very interesting. How I wish she were still alive to make the audio book version
I do hope that JJ, too, was once a go-go boy. In any case, someone really needs to dance atop the long bar ‘neath the red Chagall. That would certainly liven up the long intermissions.
To paraphrase my favorite Rossini opera: brava, bene, cosi si fa!
Justin Davidson: “After the Times’ Anthony Tommasini suggested that as chief executive, he might delegate some artistic control, Gelb called the critic into his office and told him, “I’m the director of productions”—effectively, Le Met, c’est moi. I accepted a similar invitation to discuss some reviews I had written for New York. On that occasion, he was willing to concede problems with certain productions. But now he has hunkered down and taken to bullying the very people who care most about the art form he is ostensibly there to advance.” See:
http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/peter-gelb-metropolitan-opera-2012-6/
I wonder if JJ will be called into Gelb’s office.
“I wonder if JJ will be called into Gelb’s office.”
The phrase “Basta, Roberti” comes to mind…
To which La Cieca will surely reply, “Please! Why so formal? Do call me me Margherita!”
We can always go see him together and have a spot of lunch afterwards. My post on the best and worst of the Gelb years. So far, anyway.
Interesting stuff superconductor- and I agree re Die Agyptische being one of the best… and here is the question- Why is that directors like Sher and Zimmerman (and Des McAnuff (see Falstaff in Fall 2013)) get repeated productions, but Fielding has not been invited back at all…
I know these are rhetorical, unanswerable questions, but I like to get depressed before going to sleep at night (while chanting quietly Herheim at the Met, Herheim at the Met)