Headshot of La Cieca

Cher Public

  • grimoaldo: Wagner called his mature stage works “The Art Form of the Future”, and Wagner’s... 8:14 PM
  • grimoaldo: “I remember Levine sending a message through Max Epstein to linger more on O sag’, Vater! Sieh... 8:07 PM
  • luvtennis: Kashie: Also, when I refer Wagner, I am referring both to his own artistic output, but also his... 8:07 PM
  • Leopold Rudolph von Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler: I agree with Will, I didn’t find the McVicar vapid at all. I... 7:55 PM
  • luvtennis: Thank you! See I am not always overly suspicious of others motives… :-) 7:53 PM
  • luvtennis: Thank you, dear Camille. As always, you are very kind. 7:52 PM
  • luvtennis: Environment + audience. Surely, it can be successfully argued that western art music no longer occupies... 7:51 PM
  • manou: Maybe a kind friend played Baudelaire the Liszt piano transcriptions of Wagner’s operas. 7:39 PM

Constellation

Here, for the first time in 40 years, the CBS telecast of the April 21-22 gala honoring the retirement of Sir Rudolf Bing. Read more »

Once in half a lifetime

Then and now: the “Dio ti giocondi, o sposo” duet from Otello, as telecast 34 years apart: September 25, 1978 and October 27, 2012. Read more »

Re-entrance

La Cieca (not pictured) has just accessed a new feature in YouTube that imported a dozen or so “classic” parterre video clips from Google Video into the familiar YouTube interface. For your viewing pleasure, then: Classic Parterre on YouTube.

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Le duc d’Orleans, le duc d’Ayen…

Former Editor of Opera News and Director of Opera-Music Theater at the National Endowment for the Arts Patrick J. Smith (pictured) yearns for the ancien régime: “We used to go to the opera for the voices. Zinka Milanov…” And so, anyone who has serious informed criticism of how Peter Gelb runs the Met now can look forward to getting lumped in with the reactionary prigs. [Musical America]

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