I saw the final dress rehearsal of Adriana Lecouvreur at the Royal Opera House on Monday this week, and I think I have never seen the place so crowded for such an event. No wonder, for here was a cast you might dream of, in a highly finished piece of work mounted by one of our finest directors, shown without any perceptible hitch. Read more »
Stephen Wadsworth‘s vision of Boris Godunov will be more limited than Peter Stein‘s—at least so far as timing goes. Though the original director’s version would not have run anything near as long as his 12 hour Devils on Governor’s Island last summer, Wadsworth found a way to make the production both lighter in weight and about 15 minutes shorter from curtain to curtain. Read more »
The fact: the rainbow bridge worked tonight in Rheingold at the Met, and the effect was “spectacular.” (All right, that last part was an opinion. But, moving on.)
The rumor: “everyone” at the Met knew “well in advance” that the rainbow bridge would not be attempted at Monday night’s opening performance.
Is it really true—the rumor La Cieca just now invented out of whole cloth—that René Pape will play Boris Godunov as an eccentric Chanel couturier? Cher public, you’ll have the chance to find out even before opening night of the Met’s new production of the Mussorgsky epic, since the company is making available making 2,000 free tickets to the October 8 dress rehearsal. Tickets to the quasi-preview, which begins at 11:00 a.m., will be available through an online ticket drawing only. Entries may be made on October 5 through the Met’s website www.metopera.org. Your doyenne is sure her spies know [...]
La Cieca’s newest and nicest trickster god Fartnose McGoo (pictured) attended a lecture at the Met tonight introducing the new production of Das Rheingold. After the jump, some of his observations.
[La Cieca welcomes the newest and most lissome member of the parterre espionage force, Mlle. La Taupe, who just last night invaded the first performance of San Francisco Opera's La fanciulla del West.] UPDATE: The last act!
La Cieca’s faithful spies once again have done their jobs well! What you learned here a week and a half ago about refitting to the Met stage to accommodate the ginormous weight of the Lepage Ring set has finally made its way into the New York Times. Also (love him or hate him) you have to give props to Peter Gelb for chutzpah: the reinforced stage, he says, now can support so much weight that “We can add elephants to Zeffirelli productions.” [NYT]
La Cieca has just heard from one of her habitually infallible moles that the refitting of the Met’s stages for the Robert Lepage Ring began today.
Cher Public