The very first issue of parterre box (the queer opera zine) was published on December 3, 1993, the 70th anniversary of the of birth Maria Callas. And so that must mean that parterre box is exactly 15 years old today!
To kick off what La Cieca devoutly hopes will be festivities, here is an interview with our publisher (and the creator of parterre box), conducted by Bill Richardson of the CBC’s Saturday Afternoon at the Opera.
La Cieca has launched a new project, cher public, and she hopes you will support her in this enormous endeavor. Your doyenne is in the process of scanning the entire dead-tree oeuvre of parterre box, the queer opera zine and uploading for your online enjoyment.
UPDATE: the first ten issues of parterre box are now available on the zine archive page.
[This article originally appeared in the print zine precursor to this site, one of a series of surveys of live recordings by critic Leïla de Lakmé.]
Leyla Gencer. The very name is exotic. She was an artist of Turkish ancestry who, during the 1950s and 60s, held her own despite the presence of Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Renata Scotto, Montserrat Caballe, and Magda Olivero, all of whom shared roles in her repertoire. Ironically, Gencer has a number of important credits attached to her name that many tend to forget. Wrongly viewed as the poor man’s Callas, the Turkish soprano actually showed more versatility.
Born in 1924, during the early part of her career she was known as a champion of modern works and sang in the world premiere of a number of operas, including Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites (Mme Lidoine), Pizzetti’s Assassinio nella Cattedrale (Murder in the Cathedal), Prokofiev’s Fiery Angel (the Italian premiere at Spoleto) and Rocca’s Monte Ivnor. During her career, she had a repertoire of some 70 roles, from Monteverdi and Bellini to Pizzetti and Weinberger.
OK, so sometimes she sounds like your grandmother on a bad day. Or a banshee in heat. But, you gotta admit there is something about that voice….something about the oddness of mezzo-tinged middle and low registers contrasted by a pure and sweet, flute-like, high pianissimo. But it is not only the voice but also the way in which it was used. The committment, the poised grandeur contrasted by moments of frailty and demonic fury. Looked at objectively, the soprano certainly did not have the genius of Callas nor the natural endowment of Tebaldi. So why was she so popular? Read more »
Cher Public