La Cieca is delighted to divulge that our publisher JJ has been asked to participate in the panel discussion “On Opera and Technology” at Columbia University on March 23. The discussion is one event of the two-day conference “Technologies of the Diva” presented by The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America. The identities of the other participants of JJ’s panel have not been revealed to him yet, but, perhaps in tribute to the blind-item style of La Cieca, the organizers of the conference promise “a well-known soprano,” a writer for the New York Times, and “representatives of the Met and NYCO.” Mysterious, is it not? For more information on the panel and the conference in general (both are free and open to the public), there’s a website.

“There’s a reason so many operas are named after their protagonists– you need a great performer to play a great person. The Metropolitan Opera’s current revival of Simon Boccanegra fails mainly because there’s a gaping hole where the Boccanegra ought to be.” More JJ, this time in Gay City News.