parterre box

Well, the first thing La Cieca will say about the Met’s 125th Anniversary Gala is that for all its sprawling splendor it doesn’t look quite what you’d call entertaining. Or rather let’s say it looks as if it won’t sound very entertaining. The visual element — you know, computer-animated Marc Chagall murals and Waltraud Meier prancing about in a copy of Rosa Ponselle‘s Carmen drag — will likely achieve a level of instant camp approaching that of Rosie O’Donnell‘s variety show last night. (La Cieca had no room for the phrase in the previous run-on sentence, but, anyway, good old Rosa’s “controversial” toreador pants ensemble was of course designed by “dyke, ya know” Valentina.)

Leaving aside such questions as “are there really more than a dozen people in New York iwho are really panting to hear Natalie Dessay sing Violetta,” what La Cieca wonders is: can there be a less appropriate selection for a gala than the final scene from Parsifal, and to close the first half (a la Birdie Coonan) yet? Surely someone at the Met realizes that as soon as the audience starts applauding, some heligie Kunst nut will bellow, “Shuddup! It’s a sacred festival play!”

On the other hand, La Cieca feels that in the current political climate it is a deliciously subversive act for the Met to program this music drama for its anniversary, since the company’s 1903 premiere of the work constituted perhaps the greatest example of theft of intellectual property in operatic history. Pirate-y!

Sopranos Deborah Voigt and Patricia Racette and mezzo-soprano Susan Graham made their drag king debut on Sunday night, and for once the gender confusion has nothing to do with Rufus Wainwright. The trio of songstresses donned tuxes for a spoof of the Three Tenors at a gala honoring Placido Domingo‘s 40th anniversary at the Met. The ladies quickly stripped down to “shimmering gowns in which they delivered the aria ‘Nessun Dorma’ that was a signature piece for The Three Tenors.” Photo by Ken Howard, Metropolitan Opera. [via AP]

As several of you informed La Cieca (some in no uncertain terms) our most recent Regiequiz was a bit dodgy — the opera represented was hardly a standard repertory work, and the stage direction was fairly straightforward. Richard “Wallpaper” Jones directed this production of Gerald Barry’s The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, a Bremen revival of the original ENO staging.

This time around La Cieca plays fair: here’s a standard work she is sure you will all recognize:  Read more »