“Three-time Grammy winner Rene’e Fleming is beloved by classical and opera fans around the world [ça va sans dire], but the superstar soprano has also earned the admiration of a new generation of singers and songwriters …. ” Read more »
Our sometime correspondent Seth Colter Walls sees in new PBS leadership a chance for a wider reach for “the splashiest happenings in America’s resurgent classical-music culture.” [Newsweek]
Further proof of the endemic menace of casting singers purely for appearance is this photograph of the dewy juvenile leads in Simon Boccanegra promoting tonight’s Channel 13 telecast of the opera.
La Cieca has obtained a snippet of the Met's upcoming HD simulcast of Thomas' Hamlet. Do not reveal to anyone the source of this clip! Read more »
It took the Metropolitan Opera decades to catch up with the rest of the world and finally stage La Cenerentola. Gioachino Rossini’s opera buffa, one of his most beloved and accomplished works, received its belated Met debut in 1997, amidst legitimate suspicions that the new production was less a genuine desire to add a belcanto masterpiece to the company’s repertoire than a concession to Cecilia Bartoli’s demands. Since then the production has been revived several times with galaxy of international mezzo-sopranos such as Jennifer Larmore, Sonia Ganassi, Olga Borodina and, just this past season, superstar Elina Garanca. Read more »
Like Liza Minnelli at the Palace or Nomi Malone in Goddess, Renée Fleming's Thaïs is better understood as diva event than Gesamtkunstwerk. It’s an opportunity to watch a star lady do her voodoo in a work that exists largely to showcase her glamour and appeal. Read more »
1. Webcast technology has been refined enormously in the barely two years since the pioneering (and frustrating) effort at streaming a performance of Il Sant'Alessio. The embeddable (!) player didn't skip once that I could see, and the sound was consistent. Neither, obviously, was exactly HD quality, but the experience felt quite seamless. Read more »
Welcome, cher public, to discussion for this afternoon's Met broadcast of Der Rosenkavalier. The performance begins at 1:00 PM. Read more »
Cher Public