La Cieca
More about That Night from the Boo York Times.
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.
To cut to the chase: the creation of art is a risky business. There are few guarantees of quality, of profundity or of the longevity of the work’s appeal. The creation of any sort of art is therefore an experiment, and as with a scientific experiment, failure is a possible outcome. Failure, then, is one…
La Cieca shudders to think that Hugh Canning may be indulging in a trifle more anatomical detail than is absolutely necessary: The few touches of colour make big statements: the hostess’s red camellia at the Act I festivities, or her scarlet and her friend’s pink one at Flora’s gambling party.
The controversy over the new Met Tosca has driven parterre box’s weekly page views to an all-time high, for the first time ever topping the 100,000 mark. For the week of September 20-26, 2009, a total of 110,413 pageviews were logged by Google Analytics, far surpassing the previous record of 90,505 achieved in the third…
The New York Times, in its never-ending quest to find more expensive and less relevant ways to cover the arts, has dispatched Daniel J. Wakin to Rome for an in-depth conversation with the man of the hour, Franco Zeffirelli. The legendary stage director, conceding that he has not had a fair chance to tell his…
And this is so not someone I expected to turn up at the Embassy Ball.
As newpapers across the nation decimate their staffs, as arts writers beg to write free for blogs, and as (apparently) nothing else happens in the world today, Alan Daniel J. Wakin is still answering Franco Zeffirelli’s drunk-dials. Hilarious takeaway: Frengo metaphorically compares the fag-specific metier of operatic stage direction to heterosexual marriage. [NYT]
Says a spectator at last night’s Tosca: [The final leap] “did seem poorly timed– Mattila ran to the top in slow motion, switch to stunt double appeared obvious. No boos followed– unenthusiastic applause instead. Neither Scarpia took any bow.”
La Cieca feels like she’s supposed to make a joke here, but she can’t — because Anthony Tommasini‘s interview with Barbra Streisand is like… well, you know!
Unlike the directors of some recent Metropolitan Opera stagings, Julie Taymor received an enthusiastic ovation when her production of Mozart’s “Zauberflöte” had its debut at the house in 2004. If the Metropolitan Opera continues on its current path, Jonathan Miller’s 1998 production of Mozart’s “Nozze di Figaro” will be succeeded either by a version couched…
Goodness knows, and La Cieca does too, that not everyone can achieve the precision of intonation of our dear Dame Nellie Melba, as I’m sure dear Dame Nellie would be the first to remind us. But even without perfect tuning or even because of perfect tuning, certain singers achieve a more viscerally thrilling effect than…
Renée Fleming shall henceforth be known as “La Scoopenda.” Congratulations to JNinNYC for his splendid suggestion, and thanks to all you lovely public who came up with so many clever ideas: in particular “La Ubiquita,” “Miss Cast” and “That Woman.” The new Verismo CD (among other delectables) is now on its way to the clever…
“As ever though, it was that gnomic figure in the orchestra pit that dominated the night. James Levine, the Met’s principal conductor, made his debut at the Met with Tosca in 1971 and now approaches his 2,500th performance at the house. From the audience, all you see of him from behind as he conducts is…
Now, here La Cieca is somewhat confused. The music is obviously from Tannhäuser, but so far as she can tell the scenario for the video is derived from the 1964 Bette Davis vehicle Dead Ringer.
“…a new production of Puccini’s Tosca left a significant segment of the audience booing one of the company’s biggest failures in decades.” [AP, unsigned review, and no wonder]
Well, all La Cieca can think is that the New York City Opera has just plain decided to win your doyenne over, because otherwise how can you explain why the company would present an art installation that combines her two very favorite things in the entire universe, i.e., couture and explosions?
Hans Lick (not pictured) called it! Yes, that’s right, our previous Regie quiz depicted a production of Wagner’s Siegfried. This Inszenierung (for Theater Lübeck) was by Anthony Pilavachi. Now, who’s inszeniering whom here?
[Karita Mattila] “was also remarkably unsexy, which made one wonder what Scarpia was so excited about.” [Wall Street Journal]
Is it just me, or is Patricia Racette on the cusp of turning into Aprile Millo? (Oh, and while we’re on the subject: it certainly took her long enough, but finally The People’s Diva really looks like a diva! Brava, you go on like this!)
“Tosca is no highbrow psychological study — it’s an operatic slasher movie.” [NYP]
Where else? [NYT]
“Don Giovanni …. Ideal for those still wishing your cheating ex will get screwed in the end.” [NYCO]
“Tosca gashes the portrait of the Magdalene (with a breast bared)…” Also: damn those bloggers! Damn them! [NYT]
