La Cieca
La Cieca hears that Rene Pape has just canceled an upcoming production of Les Contes d’Hoffmann. Now, we New Yorkers perhaps should not panic quite yet, because the engagement he has just asked to be released from is not at the Met. On the other hand, the Hoffmann Pape is leaving is after his scheduled…
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.
“Well, you know, this will sound crazy, but because I spent many, many years as a choirboy, I think about service music all the time.” The Man of Steel is Mad About Music on WNYC with Gilbert Kaplan.
La Cieca, you know, is all for modernizing opera stagings to appeal to the young — up to and including (ahem) the use of frank sexual references, even in the works of the divine Mozart. But even your broad-minded doyenne must come to the conclusions that Dallas Opera has gone too far this time! (“Can…
Boris Pokrovsky, a famed Russian opera director who staged many of the Bolshoi Theatre’s biggest productions in the Soviet era, died on Friday at age 97. [via AP] Here’s a scene from Pokrovsky’s lavish 1980 production of Sadko: [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/SaSxMYmAIMQ” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
La Cieca presents with pride her latest installment of Unnatural Acts of Opera, the Donizetti rarity Belisario, featuring legendary Leyla Gencer as vengeful Roman matron Antonina.
Leyla Gencer: The very name is exotic. She was an artist of Turkish ancestry who, during the 1950s and 60s, held her own despite the presence of Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi, Renata Scotto, Montserrat Caballe, and Magda Olivero, all of whom shared roles in her repertoire. Ironically, Gencer has a number of important credits attached…
A snippet from Flatpack: An Opera in Ikea, now playing at the IKEA Wembley, Drury Lane. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/dW2pB7E74eg” width=”425″ height=”261″ wmode=”transparent” /] “The Opera explores issues encountered in everyday modern life and how our consumer decisions and domestic interaction with others are indicators of more profound life choices and personalities. Practically, this focuses on a…
La Cieca is always impressed when a veteran artist chooses, instead of resting on her considerable laurels, to expand upon her knowledge of the art of song. This is especially true when a true diva chooses to study at the knee of another diva, even though the latter diva is younger in years than the…
Vittorio Grigolo sings Edgardo in May 2009.
Member of the cher public ellerveira informs La Cieca: Juan Diego Florez has given several very fascinating interviews to the Spanish media while in Madrid for his two recitals that will replace his canceled performance of Rigoletto. He explained in some detail why he stopped singing Rigoletto (tessitura too low for his voice and if…
Francesca Zambello (center), universally critically slammed for her production of The Little Mermaid, has been tapped as director of yet another musical, as if Little House on the Prairie and Rebecca are not enough to keep her busy. She’s helming First Wives’ Club for a July opening at the Old Globe Theatre in Baltimore San…
La Cieca’s band of elfin techies are moving parterre.com to a new hosting server. What that means to you, cher public, is that you may experience outages of posts, images or media content on this site for a few days. You’ve all been so swell for the last couple of weeks while we worked this…
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Our Own JJ directs dancers Michele and E.J. before Saturday night’s performance of “Sexy, Sassy and Starving” at Joe’s Pub. (Not pictured is Dorothy Bishop, who was busy singing…)
Your doyenne is back, cher public, and she missed you more than she can say. Thanks to so many of you who sent messages of support!
“As the East Village gentrifed over the past decade, gone are the punk-rock club, the dive bar, the crack den . . . the opera house.” Our Own JJ marks the finale of Amato Opera. [NYP]
La Cieca’s old, old, old friend Dorothy Bishop launches a revised and heavily retouched version of her show “Sexy, Sassy and Starving!” at Joe’s Pub here in NYC on Saturday, May 30 at 7:30 PM. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/Yr59Cke781M” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
Those tiny Czech flags served as red flags for the keen-eyed public, several of whom correctly surmised that last week’s Regie quiz was a production of Prodana nevesta. (The “Mrs. Slocombe from Are You Being Served?” character is Kecal the marriage broker, in this production sung by a bass in drag.) And what, my dears,…
Cher public, La Cieca entreats you all to bear with her in these next few days as she tries to figure out what the hell is going wrong with WordPress and causing the site to be suspended every couple of days. In the meantime, some of the features (such as the “recent comments” section in…
[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/HaL0jnNgm4E” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] That goddess among divas, Madame Vera Galupe-Borszkh, indulges a whim (as divas have been known to do) and returns to grace the stage next week at Symphony Space. Those of you incapable of the hike up to 95th Street may take comfort in the DVD Vera: Life of a…
“Miss Susan Alexander, a pretty but hopelessly incompetent amateur, last night opened the new Chicago Opera House in a performance of… (I still can’t pronounce that name, Mr. Kane.) Her singing, happily, is no concern of this department. Of her acting, it is absolutely impossible to say anything except that it represents a new low,…
A little housekeeping on this lovely spring morning, cher public. Starting today, commenters will be required to log in to the site. Most of you are already signed up and logged in as it is, so this new condition will mostly apply to new visitors to parterre.com. The login will be helpful to La Cieca…
La Cieca usually goes pea-green with envy when some other opera blogress launches a successful promotion, but in this case she’s going to make an exception because this story has the happiest ending imaginable. As detailed by Anne Midgette today in the Washington Post, Priscilla Barrow, who has taught music in public schools for over…
La Cieca just listened to this new recording of Alcina starring Joyce DiDonato and Maite Beaumont. She’s not going to speak up immediately about her reactions, but will open the floor to discussion. (If you can’t see the amazon mp3 player above, please click here.)
