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  • Clita del Toro: Dumb, off-topic topic: Singers whose recordings you have never, ever bought. Mine are: Domingo,... 9:07 AM
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  • phoenix: On this inaugural festive weekend: very best wishes to Bobensane (and all parterrianensane comrades) for... 8:18 AM
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  • Marcello: http://www.salzbur gerfestspiele.at/P ortals/0/Pfingsten _2013_Programm_Web .pdf 6:34 AM
  • Marcello: The 2013 Whitsun festival in Salzburg will feature a new production of “Norma” ; starring... 6:32 AM

Two ghosts

The ENO was filled with ghosts last week. Spectral, possibly illusory figures fleetingly materialized in the Internet chatrooms that provide the setting for much of Nico Muhly’s new opera Two Boys, and brutal boarding school memories came back to troubled life in director Christopher Alden’s dark take on Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s DreamRead more »

Regietourneereiseverlauf

Or, for those of you who don’t take pleasure as La Cieca does in inventing totally bogus German compound words, Itinerary for the Regie Tour. Your doyenne and faithful sidekick Dawn Fatale (also pictured) will be hitting the continent later this week for a taste of productions done in the German style. Any European members of the cher public who might want to meet and greet are invited to contact us at lacieca@parterre.com.

A detailed schedule follows der Sprung. Read more »

Katharina’s church

meistersinger_amazonIn the summer of 2007, at the height of the heated speculation and public debates over who would succeed Wolfgang Wagner as the head of the Bayreuth Festival, his daughter, Katharina Wagner presented a new production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the festival, replacing the mind-numbingly boring one by her father (his third at Bayreuth).

It’s hard not to see this production as an audition for the job of General Manager; in fact, Katharina and her half sister Eva Wagner-Pasquier were named as co-managers of the festival the following year.  Read more »

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Talk the stalk

Dawn Fatale (pictured) shares with us a horoscope:

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Dawn of the Philistines

I’m not sure who I find more annoying – the partisans who vigorously defend Luc Bondy‘s production of Tosca at the Met or those who decry it.  As Bondy’s production replaces one of the Met’s signature offerings, both groups have seized on this event as a watershed event in the history of opera in America and have been flogging their opinions of the production endlessly so as to advance their broader agenda.  So once again, poor Floria Tosca has become a victim in a war that she wanted nothing to do with.  

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