Mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard has been named the recipient of the sixth annual Beverly Sills Artist Award for young singers at the Metropolitan Opera. She receives a $50,000 prize and is married to Teddy Tahu Rhodes, which frankly strikes La Cieca as overkill. (Photo: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera)
La Cieca is delighted to note that philanthropist Agnes Varis (not pictured, obviously) will subsidize 500 premium seats at Avery Fisher Hall for the Opera Orchestra of New York’s performance of Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine conducted by Music Director Eve Queler on March 2, 2011 at 7:30 p.m. Read more »
Of course opera fans all owe Agnes Varis a lot, what with the Met rush tickets and all that, plus La Cieca, being a lady of a certain age herself, should be the last one to talk. But she can’t help hearing this quote from Varis in the foghorn rasp of Miss Blankenship: “The opera’s like Broadway but better. It’s got sex, it’s got incest, it’s got rape…. You introduce young people to music, you’ve got them for life.” [Wall Street Journal]
Cher Public