La Cieca
James Jorden (who wrote under the names "La Cieca" and "Our Own JJ") was the founder and editor of parterre box. During his 20 year career as an opera critic he wrote for the New York Times, Opera, Gay City News, Opera Now, Musical America and the New York Post. He also raised his voice in punditry on National Public Radio. From time to time he directed opera, including three unsuccessful productions of Don Giovanni. He also contributed a regular column on opera for the New York Observer. James died in October 2023.
At long last, the Met Saturday afternoon broadcasts begin again today with Don Carlo at 12:30 PM. What better way to spend a lazy winter afternoon than with Margaret, Ira, and a chat in La Casa della Cieca?
Our Own JJ (pictured) reveals what makes him cry. [Musical America]
The message of last times’s Regie quiz couldn’t be clearer: “La Cieca, schafft Neues!” Baritenor got the answer in less time than it takes to hum a Leitmotif: it was indeed Die Meistersinger, in a production by Andreas Homoki for the Komische Oper Berlin. This week’s quiz, therefore, is tougher, and La Cieca will also…
The updates on Brad Wilber‘s new Met Futures page are arriving almost daily now, with perhaps the most startling recent news the “removal” of Juan Diego Flórez from a projected new production of I puritani in April 2014. But there’s more to it, after the jump.
Adroit, awesome, autononomous Anne Midgette nominates her Top 10 Classical and Opera Releases of 2010 over at Soundcheck, and, La Cieca thinks to herself, why should Anne have all the fun? What are your favorite opera CDs and DVDs of the year, cher public? (Here are a few reviews to jog your memory.)
A faithful reader has just informed La Cieca that, two weeks ago at the Met, during an intermission of La bohème, he saw Henry Kissinger, “flanked by two bodyguards twice his height and twelve times his weight.” Which led this reader to pose to you, cher public, the following trivia question: “What makes Henry Kissinger…
Cosmologist Stephen Hawking may be the next “documentary” character to take operatic life on the stage of the Met. According to Le Devoir, director Robert Lepage, composer Osvaldo Golijov and librettist Alberto Manguel are rumored to be collaborating on an opera for the Met’s 2015-16 season based on Hawking’s A Brief History of Time.
The Bulgarian diva was born December 15, 1934.
The answers of millions of supplicants worldwide (and thousands of Met-goers citywide) have been answered. “[Peter Gelb] said there were no plans to replace Mr. Zeffirelli’s productions of La Bohème and Turandot. [New York Times]
The blogger Crew Mantle, who is perhaps best known as that fellow who attends opera performances wearing a frilly Venetian carnival mask, complained earlier this week about something or other (who can say, really?) but more to the point he made a catty observation on the subject of La Cieca’s adored cher public (pictured), and…
In honor of the re-release of Presenting Aprile Millo – Verdi Arias on EMI Classics, La Cieca is delighted to announce a new competition for parterre readers. Details are after the jump.
La Cieca invites the cher public to visit The Little Shop of Arias (your doyenne’s Amazon store) for all those last-minute holiday shopping needs!
La Cieca was just forwarded the following ominous announcement: “The George London Foundation Recital event that was to feature tenor Marcello Giordani and soprano Susanna Phillips at The Morgan Library & Museum on Sunday, December 12, 2010, at 4:30 PM, has been canceled. Mr. Giordani has been hospitalized with a severe case of sciatica and…
La Cieca (not pictured) hopes to hear reactions from the cher public who attended this afternoon’s HD of Don Carlo, a preview of which follows the jump.
“Theater ohne Regie gibt es nicht – das ist ganz einfach dann lediglich Literatur.” So writes Jürgen Flimm in the Berliner Morgenpost: “Theater without direction does not exist; it is simply only literature.” UPDATE: Our Own Batty Masetto has provided a translation after the jump.
Before retiring for the season (because the Met broadcasts start next week, and not because of those rumors of “vocal crises”) our own Betsy (pictured) was quoted as saying, “Haiku, huh? Pretty high-falutin’, if ya ask me. I am but a simple, voluptuous frontier maiden who gets her jollies by reading Bible stories to a…
“The main culprit here is director Giancarlo Del Monaco (and by extension, his enablers Plácido Domingo, Joseph Volpe and Mrs. Donald Harrington), since, like the other four Del Monaco stagings at the Met in the early 1990s, this Fanciulla concentrates on massive naturalistic sets and superficial coups de theater at the expense of subtle characterization…
La Cieca’s favorite Puccini opera premiered exactly 100 years ago tonight!
“Next year’s centennial of Tennessee Williams‘ birth got off to an early start Wednesday with a revival of Lee Hoiby‘s Summer and Smoke. But while the Manhattan School of Music’s production was solid, the 1971 opera—based on Williams’ 1948 Broadway flop—hasn’t held up well.” [New York Post]
Here’s that announcement you’ve been waiting for! The Board of Directors of Lyric Opera of Chicago announced today that soprano Renée Fleming has been named Creative Consultant, a first in this company’s history. Simultaneously, she and Sir Andrew Davis, Lyric’s music director, have been elected to the Board of Directors as Vice-Presidents. Ms. Fleming’s appointment as…
Remember that press release that taunted, “Great at push-ups and pull-ups? Do you put your friends to shame at the gym? Come show us what you’ve got!” Well, as you’re probably guessed by now, that audition call was for an opera based on that recent event in American history most closely associated with hot, sweaty…
La Cieca has been alerted to be on the lookout later this afternoon for an announcement that Renée Fleming will take on an important administrative position at Lyric Opera of Chicago. It’s not precisely “directa,” but something more comparable to Placido Domingo‘s erstwhile post at Washington National Opera. Anyway, by this afternoon we’ll have a clearer…
“Drama at the dress rehearsal of Tosca at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino! This is an open rehearsal because it is a Telethon benefit performance. Ruggero Raimondi, indisposed, is replaced by Giovanni Meoni. Adina Nitescu, the second cast Tosca, is voiceless. The first cast Tosca, Violeta Urmana, cannot go on stage because she doesn’t want to get…
This is the way the public used to greet the entrance of a beloved star, and La Cieca is very unhappy to think that she will never hear the like again.
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
