March 2008
La Cieca’s spy, just returned from the Metropolitan Opera Guild luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria honoring Franco Zeffirelli, reports: Lynn Redgrave did the voiceover for a video retrospective of Zeffirelli’s life, beginning with his origins as a “love child” (news to me). But the highlight was Angela Gheorghiu. After performing two Romanian folk tunes nobody knew or…
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
The recent death of Anthony Minghella leaves at least two Met projects in limbo. First is the opera commissioned from Osvaldo Golijov, Daedalus, currently scheduled for the 2011-2012 season. Minghella was set to serve as librettist and to direct the completed work. According to Variety, the late director’s plans at the Met also included a…
Say what you will about Sylvie Valayre, the lady is certainly game, as can be seen both in this Regied-out scene from Nabucco: [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/fJYn-D1TDw8″ width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] … and this production of Macbeth where (apparently) the Konzept for the Lady was “Patti LuPone meets Patti LaBelle.” [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/xj-hWDVvG9I” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
Cher public, in response to a request from Nerva Nelli, La Cieca has added a new feature to the parterre.com main page; or rather she’s improved upon an old feature. You may remember the excerpts from your comments used to appear above the logo at the top of the page. The new format will display…
La Cieca just can’t get enough of the old Love-Death. So this week’s edition of Unnatural Acts of Opera begins a classic performance of Wagner’s music drama from the 1976 Bayreuth Festival under the magical guidance of Carlos Kleiber. Tristan und Isolde (Act 1) UPDATE: Well, you can spank La Cieca’s butt and call her…
UPDATE:Â Be sure to join Commie-Winning Doyenne La Cieca for what is sure to be an historical webchat tonight beginning at 6:45 pm. According to an announcement on the Met’s website, tonight’s performance of Tristan und Isolde featuring (together! for the first time!) Ben Heppner and Deborah Voigt will be streamed live over RealPlayer. In…
He’s a hunkentenor, and his name is Mark Tevis!
“Take a 10-piece Gypsy band, add a hefty dose of opera, a dash of punk rock, a unicyclist and a flock of geese . . . ” [via AP]
Lots of interesting guesses, but the previous Regiequiz seems to have stumped our panel. The opera depicted is one that has become something of a favorite of revisionist directors, La Juive. You can see some of the more interesting bits of the staging in context in this video from the Staatsoper Stuttgart:Â [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/xEnPr8jbjb0″ width=”425″…
La Cieca just taken a look at a detailed schedule of Met performances for next season, and so she’s only just become aware of the following very interesting couple of weeks around the holidays:
A loyal member of the cher public noticed this howler by Need You Ask in the online NYT earlier today: Unfortunately for La Cieca (and, well, yes, for anyone else with journalistic standards — so sue me!) the Times has already managed to do one of their “Ministry of Truth” numbers on the offending paragraph…
It’s Janice Baird as Isolde tonight, opposite (still) Ben Heppner. This is getting to be like a freaking mathematical exercise.
The barihunk on the right is Jonathan Lasch, in character for The Rape of Lucretia. [via barihunks, naturally]
So La Cieca’s Met spy tells her that Angela Gheorghiu sauntered into a rehearsal for the Café Momus scene 45 minutes late after what must have been a leisurely lunch, then proceeded to offer “suggestions” improving upon the Franco Zeffirelli staging of the scene. La Cieca would say that given the diva’s track record, the…
Cher public, that’s the headline on a Bloomberg News interview with Our Renée, and first of all La Cieca will thank the news service for supplying us with such ready-made comic material.
Today is the 96th anniversary of the birth of magnificent Martha Mödl.
It looks like Gary Lehman will finally get a chance to use the full extent of his acting abilities when (inevitably) he takes over the final two performances of Tristan und Isolde next week. In honor of Gary’s return to the cast, the Met is splurging on an actual rehearsal for the maverick renegade heldentenor…
This season’s revival of Tristan und Isolde at the Met has led a number of you to wonder, “what the hell is Jane Eaglen up to these days?”Â
As guessed so cleverly by Nerva, John and a couple of others, our previous Regie puzzler was in fact Gounod’s Faust, with barihunk Marian Pop as the mohawked Valentin. And now for another unusual take on a classic work. Can you guess the opera?
Well, La Cieca must say that she thinks it’s absolutely lovely that Renée Fleming is so generous a colleague. Not only did she lend Susan Graham a dress for her hosting duties on tonight’s Live from Lincoln Center, she lent Suzy her hair as well!
There are lots of jokes about stupid tenors, but have you heard the one about the tenor who was so dumb he couldn’t figure out how a jacket worked?
UPDATED at 5:10 PM: La Cieca hears confirms that soprano Angela Meade will make her Metropolitan Opera debut tomorrow night as Elvira in Ernani, replacing Sondra Radvanovksy, who is ill.
Our own JJ recounts how “John Doyle‘s new staging of Britten’s Peter Grimes at the Metropolitan Opera sinks without a trace” in the current issue of Gay City News.
