La Cieca
James Jorden (who writes under the names "La Cieca" and "Our Own JJ") is the founder and editor of parterre box. During his 20 year career as an opera critic he has written for the New York Times, Opera, Gay City News, Opera Now, Musical America and the New York Post. He has also raised his voice in punditry on National Public Radio. From time to time he has directed opera, including three unsuccessful productions of Don Giovanni, a work he hopes to return to someday. Currently he alternates his doyenne duties with writing a weekly column on opera for the New York Observer.
Congratulations to borkmann, Dr. Hoffmann, Micaëla, emiliadiLiverpool, rysanekfreak and Enrico who all came up with the solution to our most recent Regiequiz. The opera presented is Wagner’s Tannhäuser in a new production by Hans Neuenfels for the Aalto Musiktheater Essen.
By La Cieca
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La Cieca wants to reassure her cher public that she has neither fallen off the face of the earth nor succumbed to that mysterious illness that’s killing all the bloggers. The last few days have been something of a slow news period for opera gossip and your doyenne has taken advantage of that fact by…
By La Cieca
Our previous Regiequiz was something of a “gimme,” since so many of you could easily guess it was Das Rheingold. This one may be a bit more difficult.
By La Cieca
Juan Diego Flòrez sings his role debut as Duca di Mantova, last night in the Teatro Alejandro Granda, Lima, Peru. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/7Wrx77vQv1w” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
By La Cieca
Sanford‘s mention of his preparation of a vocal identification quiz reminds La Cieca that she has one of these popular puzzlers already on hand. This clip samples nine baritones in “Il balen” from Il trovatore. And La Cieca is sure you all will be quick to identify all nine in the comments section. Il balen…
By La Cieca
“Three situations that inspire terror in any opera singer — going on as an understudy, making a Metropolitan Opera debut, singing that most challenging of all tenor roles, Wagner’s Tristan, for the first time. On March 14, Gary Lehman took on all these challenges in a single evening, emerging a hero.” Our Own JJ comments…
By La Cieca
Even as La Cieca writes this, that legendary grande dame thespian Zoe Caldwell is treading the boards of the Level “C” rehearsal room at our own little Metropolitan Opera in preparation for her debut with the company as the Duchesse de Krakenthorpe in La Fille du Régiment. (Imagine how impressive she’ll be once she’s in…
By La Cieca
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…
By La Cieca
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…
By La Cieca
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” /]
By La Cieca
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…
By La Cieca
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…
By La Cieca
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…
By La Cieca
He’s a hunkentenor, and his name is Mark Tevis!
By La Cieca
“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]
By La Cieca
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″…
By La Cieca
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:
By La Cieca
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…
By La Cieca
It’s Janice Baird as Isolde tonight, opposite (still) Ben Heppner. This is getting to be like a freaking mathematical exercise.
By La Cieca
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…
By La Cieca
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.
By La Cieca
