La Cieca
Metrosexual maestro Phillipe Jordan, currently gracing our Gotham at the helm of the Met’s Le nozze di Figaro, has been named for the next music director of the Opéra National de Paris, effective with the 2009-10 season. His appointment was announced Wednesday evening at a meeting of the company’s board of directors, according to PlaybillArts.…
La Cieca performs a dramatic reading from The Greatest Opera Novel Ever Written — and that’s merely a curtain-raiser to the second act of Verdi’s Ernani, starring Anita Cerquetti, Mario del Monaco, Ettore Bastianini and Boris Christoff, under the baton of that icon of gaiety Dimitri Mitropoulos. Well, what are you waiting for? Go directly…
La Cieca notices there are only a few tickets remaining to the Met’s October 25 Lucia, featuring, as if she has to tell you, Stephen Costello‘s role debut as Edgardo. Don’t waste any more time, cher public.
In the words of the immortal Leonard Pinth-Garnell, “Monumentally ill-advised!” UPDATE: The video has, perhaps unsurprisingly, been removed from YouTube. There are a few stills, however, on the tenor’s website. By the way, if you think the costume looks familiar, that’s because you’ve seen it before.
La Cieca’s spy backstage at the Met burbles about the most interesting spectacle so far at the new Macbeth: “Maria Guleghina’s rehearsal garb! One day she sported a green spaghetti-strap midriff top (that’s right, she wore a belly shirt), with a sequined crown across her tits.”
Worlds collide, or maybe converge, when Alex Ross (right) the New Yorker‘s classical music go-to guy sits down with Doree Shafrir (not pictured), gawker gossip girl emeritus, for a confab about life, love, Ugly Betty and, of course the long-awaited The Rest is Noise, skedded to drop October 16. Look for the interview in the…
La Cieca introduces a new feature on parterre.com, the guest review. First up to bat is longtime print zine stalwart Little Stevie, who saw Lucia di Lammermoor last night. Take this as you will: based on this evenings performance the new Met Lucia is pretty bad. The acclaimed Ms. Zimmerman simply doesn’t know how to…
Autumn in New York means many things to many people. To some, it’s glittering crowds and shimmering clouds in canyons of steel; others reflect upon upon jaded roués and gay divorcées who lunch at the Ritz. To singers it’s the height of the allergy and cancellation season. But to us, the most echt of all…
La Cieca is pleased to note that her little soupçon about the maestro’s errant email has now made it as far as the New York Daily News. True, it’s way down at the bottom of the Gatecrasher page (“Don’t Shoot the Messenger”), but, after all, classical music isn’t exactly “Pedro and Stifler want to par-tay…
La Cieca only knows what she has heard so far on Sirius (i.e., through “Che tua madre”), but, my dears, Patricia Racette is such an improvement over last season’s Butterfly! Your doyenne will definitely make another visit to Minghella-land this season. So, who caught the prima in the house? What’s your take? And, those of…
One of La Cieca’s dear colleagues (a Signor Maldè) forwarded some interesting information about this early but definitive example of the hunkentenor. The name of the gentleman (the tenor, that is, not the informant) was Eddy Ruhl, and he is perhaps best known for his recording of Cavaradossi in the notorious Vassilka Petrova Tosca. A…
Admittedly, this item is ancient history, but here goes. Which curious, sexed-up Met hunks invaded a star dressing room and immediately got their original instruments a whole lot closer than an octave apart?
La Cieca has just heard that Marcello Giordani goes on tonight (i.e., two hours from now) as Roméo at the Met, jumping in for Joseph Kaiser who presumably is ill. That brings the total number of lovers for Anna Netrebko‘s Juliette to three after only four nights of the 10-performance run. By the end of…
Aided and abetted by Noel Coward, the scintillating Mary Martin crosses over into operatic territory.
UPDATE: And now, my dears, we’ve even reached the AP! (How long before we’re on the UP and every other damn P?) La Cieca’s young, young, young friend Maury D’anatto writes: “Too funny, La Cieca: did you coin hunkentenor? Because there was just this intermission interview with Joseph Kaiser that went somewhat off the rails…
Which world-class maestro is about ready to throw himself off of the roof since he accidentally cced a private email exchange to his entire list of contacts — including Mrs. Maestro? The exchange was eventually forwarded to La Cieca, who redacted some of the details for the sake of privacy, and now presents it for…
In her ongoing efforts to monetize parterre.com, La Cieca has now partnered in a new and unusual way… with amazon.com, that is. The idea is that your doyenne selects products she thinks you, the cher public, will like; these items are then advertised on the site. Whatever purchases you make after click-through will result in…
Cecilia takes “the Bartolettes” out for a night on the town. Now, to be perfectly honest, La Cieca must admit that the above photo is an obvious fake. It’s easy to see how in fact it’s a composite of two other photos, as seen below:
Ever since everyone’s favorite apocryphal diva (with the possible minority exception of Lena Geyer), the oracular Oltrano herself, Marwdew Czgowchwz, vanished across the ocean at a time (time out of mind) that was somehow both 1956 and 1975 and yet neither, La Cieca, like all the rest of you, has reread her first copy of…
How sad that Luciano Pavarotti‘s final role should be Buoso Donati!
Reactions to last night’s Figaro prima? Anyone?
Ah, yes, of course La Cieca remembers the 1970s, or bits and pieces of it, anyway. Your doyenne fondly recalls that everyone spent that whole decade coked up and ‘luded out, and she’s in no position to condemn anyone. But even the hedonistic, anything-goes ’70s Zeitgeist cannot explain the following video; specifically, why Franco Bonisolli…
A composer I know, a neighbor,once dropped the electrifying newsthat the great Anna Moffo has sung his songs,and telephones him every New Year’s. Whenever I see him on the street,scurrying along with music scoresclutched to his chest,I stop him to askif Miss Moffo, as I,in my utter adoration, like to call her,has phoned him yetto…
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.
