Between now and Monday, La Cieca challenges you, the cher public, to name the five opera personalities you think will win this year’s trophies. Just list the names in the comments section below, and whoever gets closest to the actual announcement will win a spectacular prize package of operatic recordings sure to delight all but the most discerning palates. All comments must be made by midnight, Monday August 1, and as usual La Cieca reserves the right to exercise her whims when declaring a winner or winners.

Okay, joke: DiDonato isn’t singing either of those parts today, or ever. Her next Met broadcast appearance won’t be until next week for Ariadne auf Naxos. However, she will be present in spirit during today’s chat, as the marvelous mezzo’s management has graciously agreed to award two “Diva/Divo” t-shirts, autographed by the artist, to a pair of random chatters this afternoon.

La Cieca will hold a virtual drawing from the list of online chatters at two random times during the broadcast time (approximately 1:00 – 3:45 pm) and each of these lucky chatterboxes will receive a shirt.

The chat takes place, as always in La Casa della Cieca.

• Sirius
• Met Listen Live

In the “Funny Valentine” competition, best in show goes to Kashania, who will receive an amazon gift card. Congratulations!

And for the “Carmen in 3D” essay contest, leader in a very close field was Sanford. He will receive a pair of tickets to the New York premiere of the Carmen film this Saturday afternoon.

All you have to do, cher public, is to offer an appreciation of your favorite Carmen, Don Jose, Escamillo or Micaela in the comments below, and the author of the best comment (by determination of our panel of experts) will be awarded two tickets for Carmen 3D at 1:00 pm March 3 at AMC Loews Lincoln Square 13 in Manhattan’s trendy “Upper West Side” district.

Write hard, cher public, write hard! (La Cieca does ask that if you enter the competition seriously, you should be available to attend the March 3 showing; there are no exchanges available.)

La Cieca challenges the cher public to create their own operatically-themed Valentine’s Day cards, the more offbeat or macabre the better. You can either post a link to your designed card in the comments section or, if that’s a bit complicated for you, simply email your finished card to lacieca@parterre.com. (If you’re emailing your card, please remind La Cieca of your parterre screen name in the body of the email!)

The finest Valentine’s sentiment received by midnight, February 13 will be prominently featured on parterre.com and the designer will receive a grab-bag of recent operatic releases.

After careful tabulating and cross-referencing, test-marketing and focus-grouping, La Cieca has determined the results of the Dick Johnson contest. Congratulations to rysanekfreak for the most delightfully jejune response!

And further discussion of “La Girl” is welcomed!

La Cieca will start you off with: “Minnie bursts into sobs and throws her arms around the motionless Johnson.”

The thickest and meatiest entry by December 6 will be awarded the usual Amazon gift card.

Your doyenne gleaned from his hearsay that the mood around the office was rather more one of relief than anything else, since (as La Cieca understands it) a considerable amount of the PR’s time and energy had been expended in attempting (not always successfully) to talk the diva out of “her Lucy Ricardo-esque harebrained schemes” (La Cieca’s phrase).

Now, naturally of course, a lot of this story is just fiddle-faddle spawned of your doyenne’s all-too-fertile imagination, but let’s run with it anyway. You’ve seen what That Diva has done over the past decade and a half even while under the moderating wing of the publicist; now let’s imagine what sort of antics she might get up to now that she’s “running wild.”

The most amusing suggestion wins an amazon gift card.

Best in show, and winner of the tickets to the July 16 Caramoor performance of Norma, is CerquettiFarrell for her three-pronged, four-diva analysis supported by well-selected clips.

Runners-up (and it should be remembered that this group placed only marginally ahead of more than a dozen superb entries) are the following:

• CockyKurwenal
• Kashania
• Jumping Clapping Man
• Little Stevie

Congratulations to all!

The contest will close on Monday, July 5 at midnight. The commenter who posts the clip and comment La Cieca judges the best (and her whim is final!) will receive a pair of tickets of the July 16 performance of Norma at Caramoor plus a pair of passes on the Caramoor Caravan departing from the Grand Central Station area at 4:00 pm and returning after the opera.

And now, a singer who has been ringing La Cieca’s bel canto for several seasons now, joyous Joyce DiDonato. In this selection, she perfectly balances the technical control necessary to bel canto (long breath, smooth legato, seamlessly blended registers) with the musicianship and emotion required to bring the piece to vivid life. In particular, note the aggressive vocal attacks on the strong rhythms of the main theme of the cabaletta, bordering on the declamatory but always within the context of a breath-supported legato.

So, cher public, let’s hear it from you: what is bel canto and who can show us how to do it?

And what of Harold and the video of Dame Joan on the swing? Well, let no man call La Cieca ungracious: taking into account the overwhelming groundswell of popular support among the cher public, your doyenne has decided to name Harold “Mr. Congeniality,” which you must admit on this site is really saying something. He’ll get an amazon gift card for his populist efforts.

Keep watching parterre.com for the next competition, which will be the biggest and grandest of them all, with a prize package featuring a pair to tickets to one of this summer’s most eagerly-awaited musical events!

Voting will continue through noon tomorrow (Tuesday) and the grand prize winner will be announced at that time. La Cieca encourages the cher public to campaign for their favorites!

Your task is to find and to properly embed a YouTube video exemplifying “Tout gai!”, then append a few sentences explaining why your choice is indeed le plus gai.  Allow La Cieca to demonstrate:

We will pass briefly over the obvious camp value of the dragocious interpretation of 18th century costume and stage demeanor (while admitting that Beverly Sills rocks both) and the ornamentation Roland Gagnon madly bedazzles over Handel’s melody; the point here is the gaiety (in the pre-cocksucking sense of the word) with which the singer sails through the music.  To me, the deepest loss in the Sills package in her last five years of career wasn’t the wobble or the hardening of the top notes, it was the dimming of her sheer giggling joy in singing. And that’s why I like to remember her at her gayest here.

So, go look for a YouTube clip of your favorite “Tout gai!” moment, and post it in the comments section for this posting, along with your commentary, by midnight on Sunday, June 27. The clip and comment La Cieca judges the best (and her whim is final) will receive a copy of the newly-released DVD The Metropolitan Opera Gala 1991: 25th Anniversary at Lincoln Center, documenting this performance. (If the winner resides outside the United States, La Cieca reserves the right to substitute an amazon.com gift certificate of equivalent value.)

Now, gai it up!

Congratulations and thanks go out as well to the many, many members of the cher public who shared clips and wisdom, and who played so nicely together all the while too throughout a thread of 269 comments and counting! La Cieca is now open to suggestions for topics for further competitions along these lines, the first of which will begin on Thursday of this week.

Thanks to you all once again, and bless you! Bless you!

The concept is: if you want to know how an aria or operatic scene should be performed, look no further. Your task is to find and to properly embed a YouTube video exemplifying some operatic superlative, then append a few sentences explaining why your choice is indeed the best of the best.

La Cieca will now offer an example.

Everything about this Renata Tebaldi clip if pretty fabulous including (especially) the hair, but what really is “how it’s done” here is the expert and fearless use of chest voice. Especially impressive is the soprano’s deliberate contrast of timbre between the hard, snarling chest tone and the limpid mezza voce in the middle register. Some Giocondas are good at expressing rage, others vulnerability, but Tebaldi can modulate between the two almost instantaneously without sacrificing the quality of the voice.

So, go look for a YouTube clip of your favorite “Now, that’s how it’s done!” moment, and post it in the comments section for this posting, along with your commentary, by midnight on Sunday, June 20. The clip and comment La Cieca judges the best (and her whim is final) will receive a copy of the newly-released DVD The Metropolitan Opera Gala 1991: 25th Anniversary at Lincoln Center, documenting this performance. (If the winner resides outside the United States, La Cieca reserves the right to substitute an amazon.com gift certificate of equivalent value.)

So, show La Cieca how it’s done!

Undaunted by this lavishly star-studded extravaganza, Our Own proud parterrian Faux Paul devised an hommage, after the jump.

So, this is how it works:

• Create a lipdub video of yourself lip-synching along to the dulcet  strains of “Endlessly.”
• Edit as necessary.
• Upload the finished video to YouTube.
• Finally, paste the YouTube embed code (including the inserted “v”) into the comments section of this posting.

La Cieca will judge the best videos posted through midnight on June 7, 2010 and will award one grand prize, a $200 gift card at amazon.com.

Now, the details. La Cieca realizes that some the cher public cherish their anonymity, so disguises such as sunglasses, masks, wigs, cowls and strategically placed shadows are allowed and in fact encouraged.  Please, though, make sure your lips are visible in the video, or else what’s the point?

La Cieca will judge the videos based on accuracy of lipsynch, creativity, and adherence to the long-standing parterre.com traditional of gentle and affectionate joshing toward our dear Renée.

Extra points will be awarded for location filming, so start sizing up Lincoln Center, The High Line and other places where La Scoopenda is known to hole up.

If you have questions about details of the rules, or any technical problems in the process of embedding your video in the comments, please contact La Cieca at lacieca@parterre.com.

Now, to get your creative juices flowing, an example of top-quality solo lipdubbing:

The winners selected by the Chief Adjudicating Hunkentenor will choose from operagoing packages including the lavish spread laid on by Opera Theatre Company from Dublin: a pair of tickets to The Marriage of Figaro, three nights’ accommodation and up to 1000€ to cover flights.

Further details on the competition (which begins Monday , April 26) may be found on The Omniscient Mussel.

Our next competition: La Cieca invites you, a member of the cher public who is available during the next couple of weeks to attend a performance of Inner Voices (you got that?) to:

• name your favorite operatic monodrama, and then
• offer an appreciation of the work.
• you can use a YouTube clip if you like

Again, this competition is only for people who are available during the next couple of weeks to attend a performance of Inner Voices. La Cieca will accept entries through midnight tomorrow, Monday April 12.

So, start your monodramming, and may the best New Yorker win!

After the jump, details on the giveaway and the chat proper.
During this afternoon’s chat, in the comments section following this posting, La Cieca will post two opera trivia questions, one during the first act of Die Zauberflöte, and another during the second act. The first member of the cher public to post a comment with the correct answer will win a pair of tickets to Inner Voices. Each member of the cher public is eligible to win only once this afternoon. La Cieca’s decision as to the accuracy of the answers and the order in which they were posted is final.

Members of the cher public who choose to participate in the live chat over at La Casa della Cieca are naturally welcome to do so, but if they want to participate in our little trivia competition, they should keep a close eye on this comments thread. (Photo:  Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera)

• Find a radio station
• List of online stations
• Sirius satellite radio

• Libretto
• Vocal score

Special mention goes to rysanekfreak, baritenor,  BETSY_ANN_BOBOLINK and CruzSF for their variously heart-rending and knee-slapping exploits.

So here’s the game. You find a CD, DVD, audio file or opera-related book you’ve been meaning to get to for while, and, well, get to it. Then post a quick account of the experience in the comments section below. Points will be won for length of the procrastination, the decision-making process that led you to choose one thing over another from the slush pile, and of course interesting critique.

Given that La Cieca didn’t get around to creating this competition until two days into National Procrastination Week, she’s going to cut you a little slack and say that comments will be accepted until midnight on Friday, March 12. The best procrastinator (which, ironically, in this case, will mean one who manages not to procrastinate) will receive a $100 gift card from amazon.com.

First place, for consistent excellence in both of the two definitions, goes to Donna Carlo (pictured above) for the following newly-coined words:

“I must say the bootique were out in full force for the opening night of the new Mary Zimmerman Norma.”

“The production dredged a new nadir of Gesamtwerkkunst when Susanna started playing the horn part in ‘Aprite un po’ quegli occhi’.”

There were two superb individual words suggested as well, certainly in the running to be used constantly in forthcoming parterre discussions.

From pavel:

“I must say the booque were out in full force for the opening night of the new Mary Zimmerman Norma.”

And from mozartFreak:

“The production dredged a new nadir of Schleptragerung when Susanna started playing the horn part in ‘Aprite un po’ quegli occhi’.”

In honor of jury president Squirrel, a special award honoring the year’s most promising comeback, the “Noisetier d’or,” goes to melisma catatonia for Ersatzbeschaeftigungsregie.

So, our two definitions.

A. “The opposite of a claque; a group or cabal of audience members who arrive at the theater predisposed to dislike what they are about to see or hear, and eager to express their displeasure.”

Used in a sentence: “I must say the ______ were out in full force for the opening night of the new Mary Zimmerman Norma.”

B. “A style of production in which opera singers are required to schlep set pieces, dress people onstage, pretend to be scenery, and otherwise do things that are not ordinarily part of the AGMA job description.”

Used in a sentence: “The production dredged a new nadir of _________ when Susanna started playing the horn part in ‘Aprite un po’ quegli occhi’.”

Details of how the competition works:

Leave a comment below with your two newly-minted words. If you like, you may also include a brief rationale for each neologism.

Entries will be accepted through Friday Feb. 12 at midnight.

An independent panel of parterre.com experts will then decide upon the winner, who will be awarded a deluxe gift package including the recent Met releases of Thaïs and La Cenerentola and the Hilary Hahn Violin and Voice CD.

Please note that La Cieca reserves the right to exercise her notorious “whims of iron” in this as in all other matters.

So many wonderful lists were offered up that La Cieca found herself with no choice but to extend her largesse, and so she has selected two runners-up who should prepare themselves to serve out Rysanekfreak’s term of office in the wake of the inevitable sex scandal. Winning tshirts from the CafePress parterre box collection are Valmont for The Top Ten Not Necessarily Romantic Power Couples of the Past Ten Years and Baritenor for The Ten Most Uncomfortable, Unpredictable or Unintentionally Hilarious Moments at the Met’s HD Transmission Backstage Segments.

And let La Cieca just add, “You are all winners, even though some of you are less winning that others.”

La Cieca welcomes to the editorial desk of parterre.com new correspondents squirrel and Ercole Farnese, who have already begun their blanket coverage of the New York City opera scene. 

Congratulations as well to CruzSF! For his astute commentary in the Future Shock thread, he will receive the coveted autographed copy of Sacrificium. La Cieca is sure you will all join her in raising a celebratory Castratini to his victory.

As for further additions to the parterre staff, La Cieca is still poring through the vast and dauntingly superb reviews that have gushed into our Sunnyside offices, which is mostly her own fault for locating in a basement apartment. She will send out invitations to further assignments to those best of the best in the next week or so.

In the meantime (and even afterward), please remember, cher public, that La Cieca is very interested in what you have to say. If there’s something you want to write (rant, review, think piece, whatever), please send La Cieca an email pitching your idea.