Poet of the podium Carlos Kleiber leads the final minutes of Tristan und Isolde from the mystic abyss of Bayreuth, circa 1975. Read more »
Today La Cieca prepares to usher in the New Year in the way that has been traditional among her people for thousands of years… Read more »
La Cieca is proud to “hostess” a classic performance of Semiramide as performed at La Scala on 17 December 1962. Heading the starry cast are Joan Sutherland (Semiramide), Giulietta Simionato (Arsace), Wladimiro Ganzarolli (Assur) and Gianni Raimondi (Idreno). You can listen to the first act on the Unnatural Acts of Opera page.
La Cieca is delighted to present, by special arrangement with VAI, the legendary “New Orleans Forza” as the latest installment of Unnatural Acts of Opera. This live performance was recorded in March of 1953 and stars Zinka Milanov, Mario del Monaco and Leonard Warren. You can hear the first act after the jump. Read more »
Antonina (Leyla Gencer) regrets the error of her ways in the third act of Donizetti’s Belisario, the latest episode of Unnatural Acts of Opera. Read more »
On tonight’s episode of Unnatural Acts of Opera, we hear the second act of Donizetti’s Belisario. But we won’t hear Leyla Gencer
Hear it after the jump. Read more »
La Cieca presents with pride her latest installment of Unnatural Acts of Opera, the Donizetti rarity Belisario, featuring legendary Leyla Gencer as vengeful Roman matron Antonina. Read more »
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, Gencer actually showed more versatility than her Greek contemporary.
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. Read more »
Cher Public