A fine kettle

OperaChic caught the story first, and now it's even made the AP: Juan Diego Flórez has canceled Chicago (and anything else on the agenda for the next six weeks or so) due to a throat infection from a swallowed fishbone.

30-day flu grips music industry!

UPDATE: La Cieca has heard from more than one reliable source that Juan Diego Flórez is yet another victim of whatever it is that's mowing down all the Almavivas. The tenor, she hears, has canceled Barbiere di Siviglia at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Word on the street is that John Osborn will be released from L'elisir d'amore at Palm Beach so he may sing the Rossini in Chicago, with performances beginning February 11 opposite Joyce DiDonato and Nathan Gunn. LOC subscribers (already reeling over having Angela Gheorghiu, Barbara Frittoli, Dimitri Hvorostovsky, Peter Mattei, Bernadette Manca di Nissa and Ambrogio Maestri yoinked from this season's roster) should gird themselves for a belated press release sometime today.

From the Met's press office: "José Manuel Zapata will sing the role of Count Almaviva in Il Barbiere di Siviglia on Thursday, February 21 at 8 p.m., Monday, February 25 at 8 p.m., and Friday, February 29 at 8 p.m. He replaces Michael Schade, who is indisposed." [emphasis added]

Exotica

Last month our own JJ took in a trio of less than standard operas: Giulio Cesare and Die Frau ohne Schatten in Chicago, and Iphigénie en Tauride right here in New York. The review is in Gay City News, of course.

Lookism? Again?

Yet another rehash of the great voice vs. waistline debate, this time in the Chicago Daily Herald. Nicole Cabell laments the scarcity of European gyms, while "hunken-tenor" Joseph Kaiser plants his feet firmly on both sides of the fence by declaring, "Essentially if you can be healthy about being healthy, that's the balance to find because there's a lot of unhealthy ways to be 'healthy.'"

Usual suspects Deborah Voigt and Nathan Gunn offer no comment, but "bari-hunk" Mariusz Kwiecien is willing go on the record that he is "not an extremely good looking guy." (Obviously he didn't take a good look at this photo accompanying the article!)

Is anyone surprised to hear that the most sensible one of the bunch is the mezzo? "There is no denying the influence of the mass media culture of today on opera, but I think it's naïve to think that the idea of 'glamour' is nothing new to opera," says Joyce DiDonato. "Look at all the old diva photos from the 1920s and '30s and you see many svelte, sexy ladies at the height of their powers."

La Cieca herself couldn't say it more eloquently, so she'll turn the program over to radiant Rosa Ponselle. The diva is 39 here, just a year before her retirement from the Met:

E Susanna vien

La Cieca predicted a cast change earlier, and what do you know, so it came to pass! Soprano Lisette Oropesa will sing the Tuesday prima of the Met's revival of Le nozze di Figaro and at least one more performance. She is jumping in for the enceinte Isabel Bayrakdarian. Ms. Oropesa is not only a member of the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program but (even more impressively) she is La Cieca's homegirl since she is a graduate of LSU in dear old Baton Rouge! It should be noted, however, that she and La Cieca matriculated in different centuries.

Meanwhile, in Chicago, Angela Gheorghiu has been fired from Lyric Opera's production of La bohème which is scheduled to open Monday, October 1. Thundered General Director William Mason, "Miss Gheorghiu has missed 6 of 10 rehearsals, including the piano dress rehearsal and both staging rehearsals with the orchestra. She missed one of the most critical stage-orchestra rehearsals when she left the city for New York without permission, a direct violation of her contract." La Gheorghiu was in fact spotted in the audience for the Met's prima of Gounod's Roméo et Juliette on Tuesday night.

The news is somewhat less dire for other members of the Gheorghiu famille. Those of you cher public who missed out on Roberto "Million Dollar Legs" Alagna's stylish Roméo this week may get another chance at seeing his collaboration with Anna Netrebko in the Gounod love story. La Cieca hears that Alagna will return in December to fill the "TBA" slots on the 8th, 12th and 15th, including the broadcast and HD telecast. Matthew Polenzani, La Cieca hears, will take over the role on December 20.

Rocky Mountain low

UPDATE: A source at Opera Colorado informs La Cieca that there is in fact no exodus currently in progress from the company's costume shop. La Cieca apologizes for the confusion.

Earlier, La Cieca reported that her "mile-high informant" whispered that "Colorado Opera's entire costume department just quit in a huff. Or was fired in a huff." Apparently La Cieca was either misinformed or else misunderstood the tip she was given.

In any case, we continue with the latest installment of News of the Hard to Believe. America's Singing Slab Nathan Gunn is quoted in the Chicago Tribune as saying, apparently with a straight face, "To be honest, I don't think that much about how I look."

No, John von Rhein wasn't buying it either.

Un ballo in mascara

"Eye makeup never looked so good on a man. In the latest installment of Pirates of the Caribbean, Johnny Depp trowels on more black eyeliner than a Kabuki dancer. . . . and he is not the only man calling for more kohl. Lately, eyeliner -- that little slick of dark paste -- has acquired a new, more-masculine and more-marketable name: 'Guyliner.' Tobey Maguire wears it in Spider-Man 3. Fall Out Boy bassist and Chicago rocker Pete Wentz gave a step-by-step demonstration on People magazine's Web site recently, showing the uninitiated how to affix it." -- Chicago Tribune, June 4, 2007.

Veils, song

As if those opera queens (you know La Cieca is talking to you, cher public) don't already have more than enough to listen to, what with Unnatural Acts of Opera, plus Sirius Met Broadcasts, plus various streaming radio on the internet -- well, now there's lots more where that came from. Well, anyway, one more from where that came from -- the Lyric Opera of Chicago, which will resume its broadcasts beginning this Saturday night, October 21.

This will be the first series of broadcasts from the Lyric Opera since the 2001- 2002 season, and LOC is kicking off the new broadcasts with a bang -- the opening night of Salome, featuring Deborah Voigt's first staged performance of the title role. The live broadcast will be on WFMT, 98.7 starting at 7:30 PM Central Time, and La Cieca has just learned that the broadcast will be streamed live over wfmt.com.

This works out particularly well, since there is no live Met Sirius performance that night. La Cieca knows how harried you get, cher public, when you have to choose which broadcast to listen to, and one at a time is all she can handle as well, at least until someone invents the internet radio equivalent of Tivo.

Well, that's Saturday night, but right now it's Monday, and La Cieca has some podcasting to do. Tonight's program, La Cieca hopes, you will find a special treat. The fabulous Regine Crespin is heard in recital at Hunter College on November 11, 1967, partnered by John Wustman on the 88s. This Unnatural Act of Opera program will be available beginning tonight, October 16.

Endless Love?

The Artists Formerly Known As The Love Couple made one of their now-rare duo appearances last weekend singing something called "Come Prima" at a BBC concert in London's Hyde Park. The poster for the event suggests that Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna are shall we say, growing apart.

Why the distance between the once-inseparable team? Don't go blaming Sir Terry Wogan! But could it have something to do with the unbilled appearance of "hunky Romanian pop singer/actor" Stefan Banica Jr.?

Mr. Banica, star of such film epics as Liceenii rock’n roll (1990) and Sexi harem Ada-Kaleh (1999), recently created the role of Billy Flynn in the first Bucharest company of Chicago. He is seen here soulfully duetting with compatriot Gheorghiu.


So, just how simpatico were Gheorghiu and Banica onstage? Well, let's put it this way: the Beeb's website captioned this photo "Angela Gheorghiu duets with Roberto Alagna."

If you care to hear how this concert sounded, you can access it at BBC Radio 2. La Cieca's correspondent on the scene in Hyde Park suggests, "Use the 5 min skip button to miss the less interesting items. Angela's first contribution is 10 minutes in. Roberto's, followed by their duet, is about 50 minutes in, and the rest 1 hour 15 mins." Though, be warned, you'll miss "Italian sensation Vittorio Grigolo, plus trumpet player Alison Balsom and special guest, music legend Lionel Richie."

Alas, the afternoon portion of the concert was not broadcast, so you'll just have to use your mind's ear to imagine the performances of "Madness tribute band One Step Behind, irrepressible cockney duo Chas & Dave, and poptastic singer Chico."

Bleak bummer

Which soprano's sudden cancellation of all her future engagements thankfully has nothing to do with illness, and everything to do with, well, spite? She was in love, and he she loved proved bad, and did forsake her. For his secretary. Since the songbird's soon-to-be-ex-husband still has an interest in her future revenue stream, she has decided to sit and sulk rather than financing the love nest.

Meanwhile, the casts, they are a-changin' over at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Simon Keenlyside is out of Iphigenie en Tauride, replacement TBA and obviously soon, since the production opens in a little over a month. And mezzo-soprano Jane Irwin will be Mere Marie in LOC's Dialogues of the Carmelites, replacing the late Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.

Gong show

La Cieca hears that tenor Dongwon Shin saved the day at Opera Australia last night (or would that be tomorrow night?) when he jumped in on barely a day's notice as Calaf in Turandot. And most of that "day" was spent on a plane from Chicago to Sydney! First reports are that the Sydney audience gave Shin a huge ovation "like nothing we've seen here in years."

Here's a clip of Shin in Turandot opposite Jennifer Wilson, his prima donna at Opera Australia.

The Price is right!

With the new year always come new year's resolutions, and La Cieca thinks that this year her resolution will be to stop making snap judgments. La Cieca hopes you understand that she only got into the habit of making all those snap judgments because she is right almost all of the time. But now and then, La Cieca does miss the boat, and she is the first to admit it. Or at least she is among the first. One such erroneous snap judgement La Cieca made was about Dame Margaret Price. Way, way back in the 1970s, when her brain was probably addled with too much, uh, disco music, La Cieca heard a couple of recordings of Dame Margaret's singing, and, well it just somehow rubbed La Cieca the wrong way. La Cieca used words like "hooty" and "straight tone" and perhaps the most destructive snap judgement of all, "not my cup of tea." Well, now it turns out that Margaret Price should have been La Cieca's cup of tea all those years, had La Cieca bothered to take more than a single sip. And so, on this week's episode of "Unnatural Acts of Opera," La Cieca presents a performance from, ironically enough, 1981, when Dame Margaret appeared as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony. She sings, first, the "Four Last Songs" of Richard Strauss, and then selections from "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" of Gustav Mahler. As an encore, we hear Agathe's "Leise, leise" from 1973. Unnatural Acts of Opera

Man-on-Manon action

La Cieca must be getting her librettos confused. She knows that Baby Doe promises she will wait for Horace Tabor near the entrance to the Mineshaft. And, of course, back in the late '70s, any number of Gotham-based operatic evenings wound up at this venereal venue. But this is the first time La Cieca has ever heard that Manon Lescaut was a devotee of S&M -- as evidenced by her participation in this blistering scene:


This photo (by Dan Rest) is from Playbill Arts' feature on the new Lyric Opera of Chicago production production of the Puccini opera. And note that the caption reads: "bottom: Karita Mattila as Manon Lescaut." And La Cieca was sure Karita was a top!

Web of mystery

La Cieca is just asking -- why should the Web site of that prominent American baritone suddenly go offline? This artist (recently at the pinnacle of his career) has done musicals before, but this fancy footwork looks like something from Chicago!

And which switch-hitting intendant is making noises about quitting his summer job? Is he feeling cooped up, or is it just that he wants to spend more time looking at New York City real estate?

Lyric drama

Once Matthew Epstein has left Chicago (as reported this morning at musicalamerica.com), you can be sure he'll have better things to do than rest on his laurels. La Cieca hears that Matthew has his eye on San Francisco Opera, succeeding Pamela Rosenberg there. But the competition for this post is fierce: front runners include Charles MacKay of St. Louis and Christopher Hahn of Pittsburgh. And yet another prospective intendant has recently thrown her hat in the ring: none other than Carol Vaness is ready to be "directa" of SFO.

Update (December 16): The whirlwind of speculation over the next career move of Matthew Epstein continues. A usually reliable source informs La Cieca that, no, Matthew is not going to run San Francisco Opera; rather, he'll take on a prestigious position with Sony. The SFO gig (our source continues) will almost certainly go to David Gockley. So who gets Houston, then? Stay tuned.