La Cieca
This diva really is that diva!
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.
La Cieca should know by now that any think piece that kicks off with the locution “I have from time to time wrestled with this conundrum” is just going to piss her off and she should just close the tab. But she didn’t, and this is what she found a little lower down (in more…
Which diva has been dicking around the presenters of that gala by refusing to decide on a single thing: what she’ll sing, whom she’ll sing with, or even whether she’ll sing at all?
That little Pinkerton brat is all grown up — and now he’s formed his own opera company.
Just a note from La Cieca (right) to you, cher public (not pictured), to remind you that the usual prima chat will transpire here tomorrow night beginning at 7:45 pm during the Met broadcast of Aïda. Check back here at that time for the chat-related post.
What no one dares talk about in New York — at least not yet: …the medical leave will add to the debate about whether Levine is in fact overextended in his two jobs leading both the BSO and the Metropolitan Opera …. Levine’s current contract at the Met ends in 2011 and one presumes he’ll…
“What people don’t know, what people who spend time sort of, like, gossiping about a role might not know, is that, I mean, once you get onto the audition stage, you are just like everybody else; it’s what you do vocally and what you do as an artist that gets you the job or not.……
[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/_032vNxDrEI” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] Puccini’s opera performed live on location in the Gäbelbach low-income housing apartment complex in Bern. More about this television project.
“I had a reputation that I was not easy to work with… But that was because they knew I was very professional, very correct and always, always successful.” Only one diva could say that and not only get away with it, but make us adore her all the more. [St. Louis Beacon]
“Never before have I seen a Royal Opera production greeted with a standing ovation and then a fortissimo volley of boos.” [Times Online]
Anthony Tommasini‘s Sunday Times think piece about opera direction (fetchingly adorned with the Susannesque headline “Halfway Won’t Do”) is online now. La Cieca thinks TT’s heart is in the right place (and of course she’s still all aglow after the Babs interview), so she’s going to stay mum about that Herbert Wernicke production of Die…
Edo de Waart will conduct Der Rosenkavalier on October 13, 16, and 19 at the Met, replacing James Levine during his recuperation from herniated disc surgery.
The quarterly results (July-September 2009) are in, and La Cieca must say she is delighted with the participation of you, the cher public, in the Amazon Associates advertising system. After the jump, a rundown of this quarter’s most popular products ordered via parterre.com.
Sting is hoping to attract new fans to opera with his latest release, a film in which he and wife Trudie Styler tell the story of composer Robert Schumann. [BBC News]
Billionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne David H. Koch, slated to be celebrated for his boons to humanity at the November 5 “American Voices” gala by the New York City Opera, is namechecked in this month’s Rolling Stone. The article, “The Lie Machine,” details how this summer’s “spontaneous” demonstrations against health care reform “were tightly orchestrated from the top down…
UPDATE: A press release from the Met adds that James Levine has withdrawn from performances of Der Rosenkavalier as well as Tosca. Joseph Colaneri, who was already scheduled to conduct Tosca on October 3, 14, and 17, will take over Levine’s performances of the Puccini opera on October 6 and 10 matinee. (He already filled…
Which operatic A-lister — not scheduled to appear at the Met until next year — is going to offer New York a wonderful surprise return next week?
La Cieca is idly wondering how James Levine‘s back is feeling this morning, after yesterday’s flareup that left him unable to conduct Tosca at the Met last night. Rather an important question, too, since he’s scheduled for that high-profile Stravinsky-Mozart concert with the Boston Symphony tonight. In the absence of any hard evidence, your doyenne…
UPDATE: James Levine‘s on-again, off-again back problem is on again. He’s out of tonight’s Tosca, Joseph Colaneri deputizing. Carlo Guelfi sings Scarpia tonight because of the continuing indisposition of George Gagnidze. Meanwhile, James Levine‘s back seems to be feeling better.
“Britain’s Royal Opera House will stage a rarely performed Tchaikovsky opera over the Christmas period which director Francesca Zambello called the Russian composer’s ‘best kept secret’.” [Reuters] The unintenional comedy gold continues after the jump.
Our JJ‘s review of the Met’s revival of Le nozze di Figaro didn’t make it into today’s New York Post for reasons that you should be able to figure out once you’ve read the piece. At the suggestion of his editor, La Cieca is publishing it here.
Dear Alex Ross (though he sure as hell didn’t like it) is not quite ready to join the “sky is falling” chorus. Opera being a delightfully paradoxical medium, this whole debacle left me in an upbeat mood. The Met is refusing to repeat itself and is seeking, by trial and error, a new theatrical identity.…
So, was anyone at Saturday night’s performance by the Boston Symphony? How’s James Levine doing with that back problem? And doesn’t it seem that a maestro who has had a history of delicate health should maybe at this point decide whether he wants BSO or the Met — particularly when both these organizations have elaborate…
You mission, cher public, should you decide to accept it: Soprano Renée Fleming returns to her alma mater to give her first master class in NYC on Tuesday, October 20 from 6 – 7:30 PM at Juilliard. Ms. Fleming rarely gives master classes and this special event is a benefit for Juilliard…. Benefit tickets are…
