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.
Now available on Amazon.com: James Levine: Celebrating 40 Years at the Met – CD Box Set and James Levine: Celebrating 40 Years at the Met – DVD Box Set, as recently reviewed on parterre.com.
Parterre Contemporary Diva finalist Cecilia Bartoli has added another hat to already extensive headgear wardrobe: artistic director of the Salzburg Whitsun Festival. Her first project: Handel’s Giulio Cesare in 2012. [Washington Post]
La Cieca’s newest and nicest trickster god Fartnose McGoo (pictured) attended a lecture at the Met tonight introducing the new production of Das Rheingold. After the jump, some of his observations.
David H. Koch, best known here in New York as the guy they named the theater after, is active on other coasts as well. In fact, just this morning it was announced that he (and his brother) have invested ONE MILLION DOLLARS in an effort to overturn a California law “that many hoped would serve…
Monsters and Critics reveals: “Although acclaimed mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli has achieved almost everything there is to achieve in the world of classical music, she says she is still anxious ahead of every performance. In an interview with the German Press Agency dpa this week, the 44-year-old Italian opera star said a certain dose of stage…
La Cieca is delighted to announce a week-long series of investigative reports deciding once and for all the question “Who is the greatest opera diva of our generation?”
A little deductive reasoning applied to a little black dress resulted in a late in the game victory for cosmodimontevergine: in the most recent Regie quiz the director (as revealed by his signature minimalist frock) was Christoph Loy, and work was Les Vêpres Siciliennes for the Nederlandse Opera. More quiz follows after a minimal jump.…
Betsy is back in Pike or wherever she hails from, so this week we don’t have the usual smörgåsbord of listening selections she ordinarily provides. Our Own Hans Lick, though, has nominated a brace of broadcasts of possible interest to the cher public.
Takesha Meshé Kizart will make her Met debut as Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème on October 16, also singing performances on October 20, 23, 28, November 1, and 5. She replaces the originally announced Kristine Opolais, who has “withdrawn“. (In case you’re wondering, Nina Stemme was the one who canceled.) (Photo: Maja Slavec)
“Zinta Lundborg is a writer for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.” [Bloomberg]
The Board of Directors of New York City Opera has announced that Charles R. Wall was unanimously elected Chairman of the Board effective December 16, 2010. He succeeds Susan L. Baker, who will “step down” after seven years of “dedicated service.”
Lots of media news today, so let’s not waste any time! La Cieca congratulates Opera News on the occasion of the mag’s 75th anniversary this month, though your doyenne is willing to swear that the mag doesn’t look a day over 60!
Maria Callas died 33 years ago, September 16, 1977.
Only a few hours left before voting in the “Greatest Divas” poll is closed! You have until midnight tonight to add your vote to the more than 15,000 already cast.
Now, don’t you go thinking that Peter Gelb doesn’t listen to his public, which intersects quite steeply, of course, with the cher public. For instance, just the other day La Cieca and a couple of others were lamenting that opera has lost some of it mad silly gay folie lately. Lo and behold, today it…
“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…
Our Own JJ emerges from estivation to look forward, Erda-like, toward “the” event of the fall season, plus six more must-sees.
Our Own JJ will have a news item or two tomorrow, but until then, a couple of YouTube clips follow: a remake of a classic and a reimagining of a classic. La Cieca is confident the cher public (pictured) will have opinions.
Two minds with but a single frock: Marina Poplavskaya in the Met’s new Traviata (due December 31) and Emma Watson in the November 19 release Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
“As Ernesto, Barry Banks struggled against an allergic reaction and a humiliatingly camp pink get-up…” [The Telegraph]
La Cieca invites the cher public to act as blue-ribbon panel in selecting the singers to be included in the “Greatest Diva” study. Voting after the jump.
In a whole month of guessing at our most recent Regie quiz, only Melot’s Younger Brother and PirateJenny were able to narrow in on what is after all a very fringey part of the opera repertoire: Graun’s Montezuma, with a libretto by Frederick the Great. (The work was directed for the Edinburgh International Festival by…
At the request of a member of the cher public, La Cieca has updated the Little Shop of Arias store here at parterre. Available for preorder from amazon.com are such goodies as a new DVD of I puritani starring Nino Machaidze and Juan Diego Flórez.
American soprano Ailyn Perez made her Royal Opera debut last night on the company’s tour in Japan, singing two-thirds of the role of Violetta when the scheduled soprano, Ermonela Jaho, canceled after a rocky first act. (Jaho herself was a late substitute for the ever more elusive Angela Gheorghiu.) A witness to the performance says,…
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
