La Cieca
(with apologies to Stephen Sondheim) NYC OPERA FANATIC:Bless her soul,Bless her golden throat,All her fans can gloat.Renée’s preparing to chantThe bel canto role. SIEGLINDE:Today is for NormaNorma, the role of the divas of choice.America’s soprano will honor us forever.Today is for Norma,As sung by the Beautiful Voice. RENEE:Pardon me, is everybody here? Because if everybody’s…
UPDATE: Soprano Renée Fleming has issued the following statement: “Today, December 3, 2007, is the 84th anniversary of the birth of Maria Callas, the greatest interpreter of the role of Norma in the 20th century. In honor of this great artist, I have decided to reaffirm my decision not to sing Norma indefinitely. As a…
Yes, it’s yet another Geheimnisregie quiz. Which opera is this?
“… Netrebko is the larger presence. She has an earthiness and impishness — a daredeviltry — that may prevent her from ever attaining the kind of rarefied, disembodied sainthood that has been awarded, for example, to the American sopranos Renée Fleming and Dawn Upshaw but that also makes her more fun to watch.” Charles McGrath…
As La Cieca’s clever public guessed six weeks ago, Renée Fleming is not going to sing Norma. “The part just didn’t fit as she had hoped it would after living with it,” Fleming publicist Mary Lou Falcone said Thursday to the Associated Press. La Fleming, 48 (though she doesn’t look a day over 20, does…
“Legendary maestro Tullio Serafin once said that trying to perform Bellini’s Norma without a great soprano is as futile as attempting to cook risotto without rice. This month, the Metropolitan Opera experimented with such a recipe with less than palatable results.” Our Own JJ reviews Hasmik Papian‘s Druidess in Gay City News.
La Cieca presents an all-purpose season brochure for an American opera company, done in the familiar “Mad-Lib” style. Enter text in the boxes below, then click the “Go Mad” button to read your version of The Season Brochure.
The Met announced this morning yet another media partnership, this one with iN DEMAND Networks “to offer all eight new performances from the Met’s second season of Metropolitan Opera: Live in High Definition to on-demand subscribers in the United States in both standard and high definition formats.” The basic idea is that the video from…
Dame Kiri te Kanawa embraces her inner Alexis Morell Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan for this scene from the Handelian pastiche The Sorceress. Despite the film’s 1993 release date, the sensibility is pure ’80s: massive hair, voluminous frock, garish lighting design… and don’t overlook the multitude of smirking supers! (Just so you know, the aria is…
Our Own Gualtier Maldè reflects on Maria Guleghina’s first Met Norma. True confession: I love Maria Guleghina, I really, really love her. I know her flaws but her strengths are such that they sweep aside severe demerits that would consign any other artist to filth. Among contemporary singers she is one artist who thinks big,…
Don’t forget, cher public: tonight La Cieca hosts a live chat on the topic of the Norma broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera, featuring Maria Guleghina‘s first local stab at the Role of Roles. Join La Cieca in the chatroom La Foresta d’Irminsul beginning at 7:15 PM. Dare we hope tonight’s performance will be as fabulous…
“My theory: Composers who ignore significant parts of their being – nationality included – cut their creativity off at the knees. Barber was being derivative in self-defeating ways out of deference to the operatic genre. Bernstein, in comparison, was out to tell important stories using the most effective means possible…” David Patrick Stearns adds his…
“Ye Gods! In all the annals, can there be an opera containing more unmitigated codswallop than Erich Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane (‘The Miracle of Heliane’)?” Their Own Rupert Christiansen continues: Dreadfully overheated and over-loud, the prolix first act has a slavering and maudlin sensuality that gave me the creeps …. [T]he rapturous sublimity that…
Here’s Teddy Tahu Rhodes as Don Giovanni at Opera Australia. La Cieca is, for once, speechless. UPDATE: Imagine La Cieca’s surprise when she found out there is already video of this production!
Unfortunately La Cieca has been unable to find video of the stars of our current Unnatural Act in a staged version of Adriana Lecouvreur. However, here’s our other prima donna of the piece, Elena Obraztsova, in a concert performance of the Principessa’s aria “Acerba voluttà.” La Obraztsova may be heard in equally full wail opposite…
After you enjoy tomorrow’s Black Friday shopping spree at amazon.com, settle back for a little operatic comfort food: classic Turkey Tetrazzini. 6 tablespoons butter 1/2 pound mushrooms thinly sliced 1 tablespoon Madeira 4 tablespoons flour 1 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable broth 1/2 cup heavy cream 2 to 3 cups cooked turkey, cut into 3/4-inch…
La Cieca hears that our dear Aprile Millo (who recently had to cancel a Teatro Grattacielo appearance due to illness) is ready to bounce back big time in 2008. Word on the street is that Millo will join longtime colleague Dolora Zajick for a bel canto duet in OONY’s spring gala, followed by a return…
Stephanie Blythe and Julia Sweeney offer twice the gender confusion.
No, this opera is not Der Tee und das Mitleid. Rather, it’s . . . ? At least one of you has guessed correctly so far. Let’s see if we can reach a consensus with the help of an additional image.
Oh, all right, La Cieca admits it, this is not a photo from a production of Vanessa. She will say, though, that this is what a production of Vanessa should look like, and hold the scrim trees. In fact, this is a scene from Lyric Opera of Chicago‘s new Die Frau ohne Schatten, which by…
Now, you really didn’t think La Cieca would let the occasion of Maria Guleghina‘s first Met Norma go unmarked, did you? Oh, please, don’t be ridic, cher public! Surely the ascent of la Guleghina to the summit of bel canto is an experience that must be enjoyed communally. And since La Cieca has no intention…
In an unreleased track from Cecilia Bartoli‘s new “Maria” CD (and you know La Cieca dotes on inédits!), the singer/musicologess performs in English! The song is “Yon moon o’er the mountains,” which, as you all know, is one of the hit tunes from Balfe’s The Maid of Artois. In less aesthetically pleasing news, a photo…
La Cieca’s all-time favorite soprano, Renata Scotto, in one of her greatest roles, Adriana Lecouvreur — if you can think of an operatic experience to rival it, La Cieca hopes you will let her know what you’re having! La Scotto is heard in her first Adriana Lecouvreur, from San Francisco in 1977, partnered by Elena…
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.
