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.
Katherine Jenkins, C-list Britpop has-beens… and Rolando Villazón in a ginormous jewfro. No, this does not bode well.
Welcome, cher public, to discussion for this afternoon’s Met broadcast of Der Rosenkavalier. The performance begins at 1:00 PM.
Member of the cher public Harold informs La Cieca, “The singing is good but the intermissions are too fucking long. The pause was longer than the last scene and the intermission longer than Act 2. I’ll be damned if I’m going to come back for 2 40-minute intermissions and a 10 minute scene change surrounded…
The American soprano was born 84 years ago today.
There’s lots of coverage in both Italian and English-language media today about how Franco Zeffirelli (sort of) called Daniela Dessì “fat.” La Cieca chose this one because it had the funniest pictures. [The Telegraph]
La Cieca listened to Sirius for a while tonight, but then her ears began to bleed. When the best singing comes from Margaret Juntwait… but I gotta tell ya, folks.
“Ray Dull of Fresno, who recalls in the 1940s hauling manure as a teenager on his family’s Ohio farm as he listened to the Met’s Saturday radio broadcasts, understands the appeal of being up close in the movie theater.” [The Fresno Bee]
At exactly 11:18 this morning, parterre.com posted comment number 100,000.
The maniacal laughter of incorrigible NYCO nemesis Manuela Hoelterhoff continues to echo through the halls of Castle Bloomberg this morning, as yet another of the executive editor’s gang of henchscribes gloats over yesterday’s announcement of a curtailed season at the company that dared to snub Francesca Zambello. Poor paltry fools!
“Though fine from a distance, the ladies’ costumes (also designed by Howell) had an air of Lisa Kudrow’s character on Friends circa 1994, which means they’ll probably be au courant in a few years.” [Time Out New York]
Speaking of people what have “ridden that streetcar,” Antipodean diva Cheryl Barker‘s sudden withdrawal from Opera Australia’s first new production of Tosca in almost three decades seems to be based on her objection to the staging by Christopher Alden.
“There are thousands of papers, stretching back over hundreds of years, affecting Belle Reve as, piece by piece, our improvident grandfathers and father and uncles and brothers exchanged the land for their epic fornications — to put it plainly! The four-letter word deprived us of our plantation, till finally all that was left — and…
“And the news of this revival of Franco Zeffirelli’s opulent production continues to be the exciting work of the young Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons, who searches out the modernist touches in Puccini’s final work.” [NYT]
La Cieca has just been entrusted with a veritable cornucopia of future lore about our beloved Metropolitan Opera. You must remember, my friends, future events such as these will affect you in the future. And what happens in the future stays in the future. Anyway, shall we? La Cieca thought you’d never ask.
Separated at a center part: castanet-clicker Elina Garanca and cast-in-XXX-flicker Traci Lords.
“Carmen, opera’s favorite bad girl, is sexy, unpredictable and fascinating — everything the Met’s new production of Bizet’s Carmen is not.” [NYP]
Can you really believe it’s been only five years since YouTube was launched? And can you believe that it’s taken all five of those years for the definitive “this is why YouTube was invented” video to show up on the site?
Last week’s Regie quiz can be summed up in three little words: “far too easy!” Practically everybody got it right on the first guess: Die Frau Ohne Schatten, as seen at the Opernhaus Zürich in a production by the hopelessly conventional David Pountney. A somewhat less conventional production of a far less conventional opera follows…
This afternoon’s Met broadcast is Hansel and Gretel, and you know the drill about the rest. The performance starts at 1:00 pm.
The last parterre chat of 2009, Carmen from the Met, begins at 6:00 pm for a 6:30 curtain.
Well, La Cieca certainly hopes not, and she looks forward to seeing all of you in 2010. In the meantime, do drop by parterre.com beginning around 6ish this PM for a live chat about tonight’s Carmen prima from the Met. After the jump, La Cieca and an unidentified member of the cher public (possibly Camille?)…
David Pomeroy makes his Met debut tonight as the eponymous boozehound in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, replacing the ill Joseph Calleja. Meanwhile, La Cieca hears, Brandon Jovanovich is on a rehearsal stage getting brought up to speed on the Carmen production in case he has to go on for Roberto Alagna tomorrow night.
Your doyenne guiltily just realized that she has not yet taken a moment to pen a “thank you” note to that member of the cher public who sent her the George Steel watch as a holiday gift. In the spirit of that timepiece, La Cieca would like to update yesterday afternoon’s open-and-shut, 100% certain, no questions asked posting…
A tribute to Kennedy Center honoree Grace Bumbry from fellow laureate Aretha Franklin.
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
