La Cieca
La Cieca has obtained a copy of the NYCO shop letter from AGMA:Â
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.
From a performance on April 26, Anna Netrebko does a few “traditional” things with Violetta’s first act scena. (Piotr Beczala later gets in on the fun as well.) Ah quel amor…
The American Guild of Musical Artists said in a memo to members that “given the changes that George Steel wants to make in our contract, members are advised that the possibility of a strike against New York City Opera is likely.” At issue is what AGMA characterizes as Steel’s intention to eliminate guarantees of work…
Now, cher public, you have the chance to vote which of your nominated performances will be included in the upcoming MetPlayer weekend listening (and viewing party). You may cast your ballot right after the jump.
Rolando Villazón “should be well enough to return to the stage by the end of the year” after having surgery “to remove a cyst on his larynx” according to his concert management. Among the engagements Villazón is expected to cancel are Werther in Vienna and Munich, Nemorino in Los Angeles and Paris, and a new…
Kudos to tannengrin who identified last week’s Regie puzzler correctly as Nabucco. La Cieca’s heart, though, belongs to Leper Ello, who made a minimally plausible case for Boris Godunov (“The Fool – in drag – laments the future of Russia”). There’s more to lament in this week’s very serious staging.
In contrast to the high-minded sentiments expressed by the Ring directors recently interviewed by Anne Midgette, here are a few light and lively moments from a youth theater show called Her den Ring produced by the Studiotheater Bayreuth. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/aFm_48PJTHw” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
As if we ever “came to order” around here! But anyway, La Cieca is throwing the floor open for a Listening and Viewing Orgy next weekend, when the MetPlayer will offer a three-day free preview. MetPlayer offers streaming of over 200 Met broadcasts and telecasts from 1937 to the present, including 20 in HD. The…
And now, the last installment of the Met’s broadcast Ring: Götterdämmerung. Listen at noon EDT on Sirius, RealNetworks or your favorite internet radio station. Online: the libretto and the vocal score. Discuss. And don’t forget to check out La Cieca’s Amazon Deal of the Day: Hans Knappertsbusch conducts Der Ring Des Nibelungen (Bayreuth 1956), prices…
“But, as century XXI progresses, the Web is not some branch of tradutuibak scholarly research.” — Alto
Articulate, awe-inspring, alliterative administrator The Man of Steel spoke yesterday to New York One, defining his vision for the mission of the New York City Opera: “Championing new repertoire and discovering old repertoire. And particularly promoting American operas and American opera singers and providing visionary new productions of standard repertoire. So it’s a very clear…
As La Cieca intones after the jump (in her newly-found inhuman manner) you can upload a photo (of your favorite diva or divo) and this online gizmo will animate it into a talking Star Trek character. At the end of the animation process, please choose “share” and then “email” so you can send your Trekkified…
La Cieca can hardly believe that as recently as four years ago nobody had ever heard of YouTube! To celebrate the site’s fourth anniversary, here’s one of the first clips La Cieca uploaded way back in the winter of 2005. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/ckP4OXzVevI” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
[La Cieca invites the cher public to supply a caption to the above photo. And while you’re at it, anyone care to identify the gentleman at right and what opera this is?]
An all-star “Walkürenritt” from 2003, featuring Alessandra Marc (Gerhilde), Eva Marton (Helmwige), Karan Armstrong (Waltraute), Agnes Baltsa (Schwertleite), Anna Tomowa-Sintow (Ortlinde), Gwyneth Jones (Siegrune/Rossweisse) and Jochen Kowalski (Grimgerde). Golden Girls
Is it just me, or does Joseph Calleja sound simply amazing? La Cieca asks: is there a better lyric tenor out there today?
So, guess who’s going to sing Norma? “Sie ist die unbestrittene, strahlende Königin des Koloratur-Mezzofachs: Cecilia Bartoli. In der kommenden Saison wird sie im KONZERTHAUS DORTMUND in einer der bedeutendsten und schwierigsten Partien der gesamten Opernliteratur zu erleben sein: als „Norma“ in Vincenzo Bellinis gleichnamiger Oper. Die musikalische Leitung dieser wichtigen konzertanten Produktion liegt in…
Bloomberg News (your go-to source for bad news about New York City Opera) today laments that the company has “once again reached deep into its endowment.” According to scribe Zinta Lundborg, that endowment has suffered perhaps irreversible shinkage, dwindling from a massive, bulging $51 million in 2001 to a puny, humiliating $3 million currently. Lundborg suggests…
Our Own Sra. Flora del Rio, benevolent rhinemaiden of the Rio Grande, shimmered into a press conference at Santa Fe this morning and quickly shimmered out, there being but modest news to report on SFeO Season 2010. However, Flora sent this grist for your mills: Madama Butterfly, The Magic Flute, The Tales of Hoffmann, Life…
Life sometimes does imitate art, or anyway bad art. La Cieca notes in today’s New York Post a story about a wedding interrupted when the bridegroom’s boss suddenly shouted that she had slept with the groom. As any hack librettist will tell you, this is a great excuse for the big third-act concertato.
The New York Times, the Metropolitan Opera, and Comedy Central! Genius!
A sharp-eyed member of the cher public writes: I attended a performance of Damnation of Faust (with a magnificent Polenzani and Ketelsen) in St. Louis this past Saturday night. When I arrived, there was Christine Brewer in the lobby looking quite well. No cane, no walker, no crutches, no limp, no nothing. I walked up…
La Cieca hears vague rumors from here and there that there something major is going to happen with New York CIty Opera this week, possibly as early as today. According to an insider over the weekend “wagons [were] circling,” perhaps in reaction to the admission that the company has spent down over 2/3 of its endowment in…
It took giocomopuccini only minutes to guess that last time’s Regie puzzler was Bellini’s Norma, though La Cieca is still open to suggestions about what the eggs are supposed to mean. Perhaps these photos will keep you guessing a little longer.Â
