Parterre’s tutelary diva shares espresso and cookies with parterre’s fave scribe Zachary Woolfe in preparation for the gala Met Legends event honoring her next Sunday.

on February 21, 2011 at 12:27 PM

Lovely Marina Poplavskaya, arriving at the Mercedes T. Bass Grand Tier for dinner following the opening night of La traviata, demonstrates that the previous Franco Zeffirelli production has not gone to waste. The latter-day Scarlett O’Hara‘s motto: “Reduce Reuse Recycle!”

on January 05, 2011 at 11:07 AM

As we look forward to New Year’s Eve and to the gala opening of Willy Decker’s La Traviata at the Met, it seems fitting to look back—by way of the official, live, DVD recording of the production’s sensational world premiere at the Salzburg Festival in 2005—to get some sense of what’s behind all the hype.…

on December 27, 2010 at 1:50 PM

“Sombre splendor there is frequently not.” Zachary Woolfe mulls Don Carlo. [New York Observer]

on December 01, 2010 at 10:19 AM

Seven decades of difference in age doesn’t stand in the way of a charming interview between Marta Eggerth and Zachary Woolfe on the occasion of her viewing her 1932 film Das Blaue vom Himmel for the very first time. (Prepare to be verklempt.) [New York Observer]

on November 19, 2010 at 10:10 AM

“Carmen, a passionate, headstrong gypsy and one of the best-known characters in opera, is famously enigmatic, but Ms. Garanca takes that quality almost to the point of anonymity. It can often seem not that she’s a bad actress but that she’s not quite sure what acting is.”  Zealous Zachary Woolfe mulls The Garanca Paradox.

on November 10, 2010 at 12:02 PM

[@zwoolfe]

on November 06, 2010 at 11:16 AM

“Thirty years after the action of Tahiti the young son, Junior, is now gay and possibly schizophrenic; his former lover is married to his younger sister, Dede. During his mother’s funeral Junior starts a striptease in front of his father, knocking into the coffin in the process…. This was neither the sound nor the subject…

on October 23, 2010 at 11:39 PM

“You see, I don’t play roles. I find color for every role inside of me.” The soprano Marina Poplavskaya likes to talk about how she sees music as colors. She is also given to morbidly poetic formulations like “Let the harmony penetrate you like a silent knife through your heart.” [New York Observer]

on September 28, 2010 at 6:18 PM

“It doesn’t fucking matter if he means it, because the dancers need to dance!” No, that’s not, in fact, the refrain of the latest techno hit burning up the dancefloor, but rather society chronicler David Patrick Columbia, talking with Zachary Woolfe about “the web of money, power and ambiguous motives that has for a long…

on September 15, 2010 at 10:52 AM

Zack Woolfe, shirtless, and Seth Colter Walls take the High Line when deconstructing Dark Hope. [The Awl]

on June 17, 2010 at 11:58 AM

“The Met at this point is not a place where even a talented opera director can make good, strong work, let alone a place where a director inexperienced with the genre — as so many of Mr. Gelb’s favored artists are — can be guided toward an understanding of it.” Gadfly-at-large Zachary Woolfe takes “A…

on May 13, 2010 at 10:49 AM

Forget all the others. You need to read this review of The Nose. [New York Observer]

on March 09, 2010 at 10:16 PM

The arts journalist La Cieca would like be when she grows up, Zachary Woolfe, continues his analysis of Peter Gelb‘s Met tenure — now all the more interesting since Joe Volpe has returned to the fold. [Observer]

on February 09, 2010 at 11:45 PM

La Cieca’s old, old, old friend Zachary Woolfe will take to the airwaves tomorrow morning to discuss, among other less titillating topics, the controversial omission of pastied boobage from the Met’s impending HD of Les Contes d’Hoffmann.  You can hear Zack on WQXR’s Arts File at 8:30am, on 105.9FM or wqxr.org.

on December 10, 2009 at 1:49 PM

“…the director doesn’t end with the ties between Offenbach and Hoffman. He connects the thematic dots, as if it were logically inevitable, to Kafka, who — wait for it — was also a Jew! This is indeed true, but Mr. Sher could just have easily have chosen Norman Podhoretz.” [NY Observer]

on December 08, 2009 at 11:22 PM

“I can tell you honestly, I’m not that passionate anymore about singing and all this stuff, you know?” [New York Observer]

on December 02, 2009 at 11:55 AM

According to the always reliable Zachary Woolfe, among the beans spilled at the NYCO “Koch” Gala last night was the strong suggestion (from no less than Rufus Wainwright himself) that a production of Prima Donna is planned for an upcoming George Steel-planned season. [New York Observer]

on November 06, 2009 at 1:08 PM

Whenever La Cieca (center) feels afraid, she doesn’t just hold her head erect or whistle a happy tune (though she’s been known to do both on occasion), she reminds herself, “You know, things could be a lot worse than what they are!”  

on October 14, 2009 at 12:24 PM

La Cieca is just guessing here (with some prompting from Zachary Woolfe) but she thinks she has divined the coup de théâtre climaxing the Met’s new production of Tosca. They shoot Mario, etc. etc., and then Karita Mattila runs crazily off the stage as the guards come rushing on. They search all about but cannot find…

on September 09, 2009 at 11:47 PM

Zachary Woolfe asks the musical question, “Who is this Peter Gelb anyway?” [NY Observer]

on September 09, 2009 at 11:35 AM

Dishy scribe Zachary Woolfe muses on “The Bewitching Art of La Cieca” in The New York Observer. Our Own JJ is profiled, covered, revealed, reported, what he eats and what he wears and whom he knows and where he was, and when and where he’s going.

on July 08, 2009 at 8:01 AM

“When I was in junior high and my parents found gay porn on my computer, I told them that it was just popup ads from parterre.com.”  La Cieca just returned from an interview with Zachary Woolfe, who gave La Cieca that “I loved you when I was a child” crap, but you’ll be happy to…

on July 04, 2009 at 1:01 PM