It’s that date that rolls around once a year, cher public, the day we celebrate the 1993 founding of parterre box and the 1923 birth of Maria Callas. Read more »
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 [...]
Cher Public