parterre box

On this lovely first day of May, La Cieca encourages the cher public (pictured) to offer a word of thanks to this month’s sponsors of parterre.com: Carnegie Hall, The InsightALT Festival and the Bayerische Staatsoper.

La Cieca’s sources tell her that a planned revival of Faust at the Met in the fall of 2014 has been canceled, because who wants to see that ugly thing again, or else the leading lady didn’t feel like singing it, whichever. Anyway, the situation goes something like this: the company has under contract Anna Netrebko, Joseph Calleja, Artur Rucinski and René Pape for eight performances or so during that time.  Your assignment, cher public, is to come up with an opera with plausible roles for at least three, or ideally all four, of these artists. (Photo: Ken Howard / Metropolitan Opera)

Always front and center with a vote of confidence, Peter Gelb told the New York Times, “Natalie is one of the great artists, but she also is somewhat fragile.” (The kicker on the story goes like this: ”Ms. De Niese, Mr. Gelb added, will again be available, just in case.”)  So: does it begin to look to you, cher public, like this Giulio Cesare production may resemble in some ways a ride on the montagnes russes? Should Danielle de Niese just go ahead and sublet a flat at The Bel Canto? It’s up to you, parterrians, to turn your crowdsourcing skills to the task of predicting the possibly messy course of the next few weeks. Read more »