No wonder so many of you had “trouble” with last week’s Regie quiz, since the opera represented was — no, not Madama Butterfly — but Trouble in Tahiti, a production at the Munich Opera Festival directed by Schorsch Kamerun. (The leading roles were luxuriously cast with Rod Gilfry and Beth Clayton.) The casting for this […]
La forza del destino from the New Orleans Opera (1953) continues on Unnatural Acts of Opera. Meanwhile, La Cieca comments about all that publicity JJ has been receiving lately.
La Cieca is simply beside herself to announce what she is confident will be both the biggest and most exciting parterre box competition of all time. This competition is called “Reading the Letter,” and it will test that most basic of opera queen skills, i.e., pretending to be a soprano. After the jump, La Cieca […]
“A music review on Monday about the opera ‘Prima Donna’ by Rufus Wainwright, in which the character Régine at one points asks ‘Who is this woman?’ and thus recalls a similar question in ‘Madama Butterfly,’ misidentified the character in that opera who asks about a woman’s identity. She is Suzuki, Butterfly’s servant — not Butterfly.’ […]
“Il Devo a global phenomenon” [Fresno Bee]
Casting is announced for the New York City Opera’s 2009-10 season. It’s all on their website, but here are a few highlights: The “American Voices” concert features “a roster of stars including Joyce Castle, Anna Christy, Joyce DiDonato, Lauren Flanigan, Anthony Dean Griffey, and Samuel Ramey, all of whom appeared [note the past tense] at […]
The Divine Miss Millo sings “Pace, pace” in a concert from August, 1988. (Hey, don’t laugh: we all had hair like that then.)
La Cieca’s friend and icon Dorothy Bishop showed up last night on America’s Got Talent!
“We live in an age in which everyone is encouraged to express themselves, from inane blogging, Twittering and voting in mediocre talent shows. Please, let’s keep this out of the concert hall.” Jonathan Lennie admonishes over-enthusiastic applauders. (PS: the quotation sounds particularly funny if you do the voice.) [Time Out London]
Simply everyone chimes in today about Monday night’s Met in the Parks recital at Central Park SummerStage. JJ has one take, Anthony Tommasini quite another, and for depth of detail, you need look no further than Our Own Sanford:
Peter Gelb, who recently has been asking the Met’s rank and file for salary concessions, had his own compensation bumped up 36% for the 2007-08 season. According to Bloomberg News, Gelb earned about $1.5 million during his second year as the Met’s general manager. Since then he and the Met’s senior staff have taken 10% […]
La Cieca is going to bid farewell to Prima Donna and Rufus Wainwright, for the moment anyway. But before you doyenne actually, you know, goes (i.e., “ma tu ben mio, meco ritorna in pace”) she’s just going to say this: A piece like Prima Donna is exactly the sort of thing (or at least one […]
Aggregated for your aggravation, here’s the critical response to Prima Donna, the new opéra by that little gay wolverine fellow. [Clef Notes]
Was our last Regie quiz too easy? Quite a few of you (led by operacat) correctly recognized in the wartorn landscape a glimmer of I puritani. This week, La Cieca sends in the clowns (among others). Remember, cher public, honest guesses only: no blurting out the answer if you recognize the production!
“Ein Film, das Sie nie vergessen werden,” says the announcer, and this claim may very well be true. Presenting Das Lied der Balalaika, a 1971 attempt by “opera singer” Ivan Rebroff to cross over into… well, it’s difficult to define exactly the genre here. L’homme qui vient de la nuit (as the picture is entitled, […]
You know, La Cieca and her alter ego JJ are just like the pair in that lovely song by Mr. Sondheim, “The Story of Lucy and Jessie.” Well, not just like, perhaps. La Cieca can hardly be accused of having “maturity and plenty of security” and dear JJ does not exactly boast “the purity along […]
An opera quiz with the composer who’s been on everyone’s lips lately, Rufus Wainwright. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/svjlK74xZRw” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
In honor of our current series of Unnatural Acts of Opera featuring La forza del destino, La Cieca presents yet another vocal identification quiz. The aria is “Son giunta… Madre, pietosa Vergine” and your task is to identify the baker’s dozen of divas singing it. Just to shake things up, La Cieca has decided we […]
The first rule in writing an artist’s program bio is to find some interesting and unique detail that will catch the reader’s interest. This tidbit need not be directly relevant to the production at hand or even to the artist’s ostensible talent, so long as it’s, as the journalists like to say, “hooky.” Which is […]
Belated best wishes to the legendary Russian diva, who turned 70 on July 7. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/Ddg2OypBVng” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
“It suddenly occurred to me that there’s no opera about an opera singer,” [Rufus Wainwright] says. “It doesn’t exist in the repertoire.” [The Globe and Mail]
Not so many guesses for our most recent Regie quiz, so perhaps it’s not surprising that nobody identified the show as La finta giardiniera. This week’s puzzler is a more familiar title, though that might be hard to guess at first glance.
“Is there anything Rufus Wainwright can’t do?” Though, to be fair, une doyenne d’un certain age like La Cieca should be much nicer to any whippersnapper who has the grace to say things like, “she’s in her 50s. If you consider that aging or not, I don’t know. Some people told me that 50 is […]
Dear departed Shelley Winters knew a thing or two about the diva experience, and one of her most apt mediations on the topic may be found in her memoirThe Middle of My Century. She was starring in the Broadway production of A Hatful of Rain, and during rehearsals she stumbled on the heavily raked stage, […]
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
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