Onegin, which opens the Met’s season on Monday, has taken an unusually precipitous tumble…
By La Cieca
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If Frank Castorf‘s work on Der Ring des Nibelungen at Bayreuth accomplishes nothing else, it should serve as a sort of loud disorganized reminder of the dangers of indulging in the intentional fallacy.
By James Jorden
Teresa Berganza is the latest superannuated superstar to jump on the “I hate regie” bandwagon.
By La Cieca
All right, I admit it; I finally broke down and read the program notes for the Ring in the Bayreuth program book.
By James Jorden
Well, my dears, if you thought Frank Castorf‘s Ring or Stefan Herheim‘s Meistersinger were outré, then wait until you get a load of the radical take on Don Carlos by Peter Stein for the Salzburg Festival!
By La Cieca
Revealed: first images of Frank Castorf‘s production of the Ring, launching Friday at Bayreuth.
By La Cieca
We waited eagerly to hear the Munich-born Jonas Kaufmann make his role debut as Manrico at the Bavarian State Opera as well the German-Greek soprano Anja Harteros take on Leonora’s bravura difficult arias.
Soprano Elizabeth Blancke-Biggs sings the final scene from Salome in the Stefan Herheim production for Den Norske Opera.
By La Cieca
As she herself points out, Zerbinetta is perhaps the first woman besides “the inimitable Heather MacDonald” to write a serious critique of Calixto Bieito‘s production of Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
By La Cieca
La Cieca doesn’t branch out into The Film very often (even though she is quite the ardent cinephile) but the recent release—or, at any rate, the reaction to the recent release—of Baz Luhrmann‘s film of The Great Gatsby served to crystallize a few ideas bubbling about in your doyenne’s brain.
By La Cieca
La Cieca (pictured) is thrilled to announce the debut of a new online book club hosted by Norman Lebrecht of “Slipped Disc” fame.
By La Cieca
Your Wagnerian alternatives for today’s chat in La Casa della Cieca…
By La Cieca
Two time Oscar winner and Quentin Tarantino muse Christoph Waltz is branching out into opera direction.
By La Cieca
La Cieca hears that the opening night of La Scala’s 2013 season will feature a new production of La traviata starring Diana Damrau and Piotr Beczala, directed by… no, not Franco Zeffirelli, but Dmitri Tcherniakov.
By La Cieca
The gripping Calixto Bieito/Kent Nagano production of Boris Godunov from the Bayerische Staatsoper—with authoritative Alexander Tsymbalyuk in the title role…
By La Cieca
“With one of my favorite opera productions returning to the Met tonight, I’ve been considering lately what makes Willy Decker‘s Traviata so fine, so satisfying, and so worth a return visit.” [Musical America]
By La Cieca
The Prince of Regie, who’ll direct a new Vêpres siciliennes for the Royal Opera this fall, is 43 years old today.
By La Cieca
“One of the things I’m gradually learning as I’m coming up my the 20th anniversary of writing about opera for publication is that you have to be wary about making Pronouncements.”
By La Cieca
As with all good myths, certainly all the myths at the heart of Wagner’s operas, the juggling of symbols and archetypes and themes in Parsifal opens the piece to a great variety of interpretations.
By John Yohalem
Like the hero of Parsifal, who finds the Holy Grail after a lifetime of frustrated wandering, the Met’s audience was finally rewarded for its patience.
By La Cieca
