parterre box

Our Own Gualtier Maldè reports:

Not every opera has to be a masterpiece.  I couldn’t subsist on a steady diet of Tristan und Isolde, Die Zauberfloete, Fidelio, plus Otello,  Falstaff et al.  Frankly the occasional light comic bonbon or trashy but fun melodramatic tunefest makes a nice palate cleanser.  I am talking Adriana Lecouvreur, La Gioconda, Mignon – you know – the operas critics love to hate. 

I very much wanted Thaïs to be a guilty pleasure like La Gioconda or Adriana but alas, the opening night performance of the Met’s new production dashed my hopes.  Thaïs is an act of diva worship, purely a vehicle for a glamorous soprano to put in as much vocal and dramatic bling-bling into her performance while leaving out of her costumes as much as modesty will allow.  The opening night on Monday had celebrities like Christine Baranski and Anna Netrebko (with bass-barihunk Erwin Schrott in tow) and the rest of the audience primed to give Renée Fleming a sternstunde event.  It turned out to be a somewhat lukewarm evening.  Read more »

It turns out that La Cieca’s fanciful prediction (of what Renée Fleming would wear from the Christian Lacroix collection) was not so far off after all!

More images from the Met’s Thaïs after the jump.  Read more »

In what La Cieca believes is the gayest photograph ever taken, Rufus Wainwright strikes a pose with Faye Dunaway on the red carpet at the Met’s opening night.

More heart-warming news from Women’s Wear Daily: Oscar de la Renta will not, after all, boycott the Met as he previously threatened.  The designer had complained to the media that no American designer was included in the roster of designers creating frocks for Renée Fleming; in fact, de la Renta even toyed with the idea of canceling his annual donation to the opera company! Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed, with Met benefactress Mercedes Bass effecting a rapprochement.

“After all this brouhaha in the papers, he is here,” said Bass. “It was just a momentary thing — he was being protective of American designers.”