La Cieca
Meet “Opera Singer” Oksana Grigorieva. The Ukraine-born diva (seen here resting between selections during a performance of “Detskaya”) was once the girlfriend of Timothy Dalton but now is best known as “the woman behind Mel Gibson‘s billion-dollar divorce.” The Braveheart star himself produced the enceinte Grigorieva’s current single “Call My Name” (no relation to the…
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
What could say “Paris in the spring” more eloquently than this musical offering: Paris Théâtre des Champs-Elysées 06/14/2009 Kurt Weill : Die Dreigroschenoper Ian Bostridge (Macheath)… Oh, sorry, forget I said anything! Oh, the shark has Teeth like razors And a massive Overbite…
This just in from the Met’s press office: “In the Met’s new staging of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Joseph Calleja will sing the title role, replacing Rolando Villazón, and Alan Held will sing the roles of the four villains, replacing René Pape.” The press release goes on to explain that Villazón plans to undergo throat…
“But perhaps the greatest delight was witnessing Richard Bonygne wielding his baton. Demonstrating a general air of ease (but levels of energy that one might have expected from someone fifty years his junior) …” [MusicOMH]
La Cieca is fully aware that Anna Netrebko is a dress size or two bigger now than she was a couple of years ago. And yet, there is no excuse, no excuse I tell you, to transform the young courtesan Violetta Valery into the middle-aged dowager Mrs. Claypool. Now, La Cieca has a couple of…
Yuriy Mynenko represents Ukraine in the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competion — though probably not with this particular selection!
First reports indicate major personal successes for Anna Netrebko and Charles Castronovo in last night’s Traviata at San Francisco Opera.
Well guessed, cher public! Last week’s puzzler was indeed Der Freischütz in the Robert Wilson production designed by Viktor & Rolf “with the use of over one million Swarovski crystals.”
The great mezzo-soprano and advocate for the arts is 96 today! [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/pCYHALudt1k” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] (The video above is taken from one of Miss Stevens’ occasional appearances with The Wednesday Afternoon Fine Arts League under the auspices of Mrs. Ricky Ricardo.)
Your doyenne makes fun of Jessye Norman from time to time here at parterre.com, because we love her, you know. So it is with particular delight that La Cieca wishes La Jess “toi toi toi” on her Broadway debut in the hit musical Rock of Ages.
La Cieca apologizes in advance to her dear colleague the Barihunks site, but she’s happy to unveil the latest of the barihunk breed. She first noticed this singer because he has an ideal barihunk name: Holger Falk. He’s appearing in L’incoranazione di Poppea at the Boston Early Music Festival, where he garnered a strongly positive review…
Cher public, talk among yourselves. La Cieca’s going for a walk!
“This week Washington, DC celebrates Capital Pride, which culminates on Saturday, June 13 with a parade and Sunday, June 14 with a street festival. Washington National Opera will present a float featuring WNO costumes worn by supernumeraries, host a booth and raffle two tickets to The Barber of Seville at the street festival.”
Lucky patrons of San Francisco Opera, who get to see Liza Minnelli in her first staged Tosca!
Is it possible to suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder in the middle of June? La Cieca will lose (what’s left of) her mind if this constant, relentless rain doesn’t let up! [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/NBwXt_06T9w” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
On tonight’s episode of Unnatural Acts of Opera, we hear the second act of Donizetti’s Belisario. But we won’t hear Leyla Gencer during this act, as her character remains offstage for the duration. However, La Cieca has added an extra act of Donizetti (with la Gencer onstage the whole time!) as bonus. Hear it after…
“In a constellation of the world’s opera stars, one shines brighter than all the rest. But it’s not merely her ravishingly beautiful voice and physical glamour that make Renée Fleming special. In person, she makes an extraordinarily intelligent and articulate interviewee. And it comes as no surprise, since as a probing interpreter of the works…
In the almost four years since La Cieca pointed out Anthony Tommasini‘s curious penchant for “strapping,” the NYT scribe has been forced to reach, well, a bit farther back on the shelf for his modifiers. TT’s current pet adjective, as La Cieca is sure you all have noticed, is “earthy.”
“A-B-C.”
La Cieca hears that Local 802 of the American Federation of Musicians has reached an agreement with the New York City Opera. Since AGMA agreed in their meeting on May 18 that they would go with whatever 802 decided, “it looks like the season is safe for now,” says our informant.
“…if only Oprah had been alive and writing librettos in the 1940s. She’d have stood up to Britten and gotten a much better opera out of him.” David Patrick Stearns reviews The Rape of Lucretia [Philadelphia Inquirer]
La Cieca made monkeys of you all, cher public, with last week’s Regie quiz. The opera depicted was Henze’s Der Junge Lord, in a production by Christine Mielitz for Opernhaus Dortmund. This week’s quiz might be a little too easy, so please, cher public, if you recognize this staging, don’t blurt it out right away!
La Cieca is frankly gobsmacked that Our Own Vicar of John Wakefield has remained mum about the most important sex scandal of the 21st century, and possibly in Western Civilization taken as a whole. Definitive mezzo-soprano Anne Howells has apparently fingered author and TV presenter Clive James as her illicit lover. James, whose name Ms. Howells…
Premier Kim Jong Il of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea “has assisted at the rehearsal” of a new production of Yevgeny Onegin at Pyongyang’s Kim Won Gyun Conservatory, “and given guidance to the director and performers.” [via Russia Today]
