¡Mira! Mean, moody magnificent Manuela Trasobares! Read more »
Just added to Google’s online archive of Life magazine photographs: over a hundred full-color images from the Old Met in the 1960s. Be prepared for a strong pang of nostalgia as you glimpse Richard Tucker, Leontyne Price, Birgit Nilsson, Franco Corelli, Anna Moffo, Zinka Milanov and many other greats of that regrettably bygone era. [Google Images]
The world’s newest cult diva returns! Amira Kamel, first Egyptian ever to sing Aida (it says so on YouTube and so it must be true!) adopts for her “barbaric” drag not only the coiffure, maquillage and plastique of legendary Vera Galupe-Borszkh, but seem to have borrowed one of La Dementia’s caftans as well! [kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/zl51vG-a1F8" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
[Our Own Gualtier Malde (along with a few thousand other people) attended the public dress rehearsal of the Met's new production of La sonnambula this morning. Here is his report.] Innocence, rustic naiveté and virginity just don’t get no respect no more. I should know, I grew up way out in central New Jersey and couldn’t get a date (a male one that is) at all in high school. I didn’t get no respect and sadly neither does Vincenzo Bellini and more importantly, Felice Romani these days, at least at the Metropolitan Opera. These two men, one a poet in [...]
[La Cieca's old, old, old friend Camille attended Montserrat Caballe's Valentine's Day duo recital earlier this month. Her reactions -- which she admits it took her some days to sort out in her mind -- follow.] After some reflection and reviewing Caballe’s Orange Festival Norma, once again, I can merely pipe up with my opinion that she belongs to such a rarified class of singer that it is not for mere mortals to quibble about her dalliances or far-fetched caprices. THAT SAID, this recital was not, however, in the category of wonderful self-parody, a la Freddy Mercury/Barcelona, or even the [...]
Something about the role of Maddalena in Rigoletto seems to bring out the most extreme behavior in mezzo-sopranos, whether it’s the Brainfart of Herta Glaz or the celebrated Woman on the Verge of a Wardrobe Misfunction corsetry of Isola Jones. But the award for Most Hairpieces Ever Worn at the Same Time must surely go to a relatively unheralded name, Sara Nastos, who is prepared to embody Carmen, Aldonza, Tracy Turnblad or Elizabeth Taylor without so much as a little extra ratting. [kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/k0oPg5oHkC8" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]
It turns out that La Cieca’s fanciful prediction (of what Renée Fleming would wear from the Christian Lacroix collection) was not so far off after all! More images from the Met’s Thaïs after the jump.Â
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