The Metropolitan Opera has just announced that Lorin Maazel will return to the Metropolitan Opera for the first time in 45 years to conduct six performances of Wagner’s Die Walküre beginning January 7, 2008. These performances will be Maazel’s first with the company since the 1962-63 season. (To give you some concept of how long […]
A quarter of a century elapses between the prologue and first act of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra. By a bizarre coincidence, that’s exactly the same length of time since Bernard Holland has had anything remotely relevant or intelligent to say in print. His latest “efforts” are in today’s NY Times, but I’m not going to bother […]
UPDATE: CORRECTED MP3 PLAYER The remarkable OperaChic was in attendance for the prima of La Scala’s revival of La fille du Regiment, where Juan Diego Florez encored his first act cabaletta “Pour mon ame.” This performance marked the first “bis” of a solo aria at La Scala since 1933. Photos and an account of what […]
In her unceasing effort to keep you, her cher public, in touch and yakking, La Cieca has discovered a way to set up an always-open, always-active chat room launching directly from parterre.com. (For the technically minded among you, it’s an applet called Yaplet, and, yes, La Cieca realizes that it sounds about as silly as […]
UPDATE/CORRECTION: La Cieca has just been informed that Mark Risinger (the scheduled Marco) was ill yesterday and his cover, Brian Kontes, sang in his place. There was no announcement made. La Cieca’s spy at the dress rehearsal of L’arlesiana whispers: Mr. Filianoti muffed the interpolated high note in the famous aria but it was 11:30 […]
La Cieca has just heard from one of her myriad of reliable sources that the Met’s surprise box-office smash of this season, The First Emperor, will return in the spring of 2008. In order to make room in the schedule, a projected revival of An American Tragedy has been 86ed.
Newly anointed gay icon Lisa Milne performs the “Jewel Song” from Faust. (For any of this to make sense, you need to have heard her interview on last night’s Sirius broadcast.)
Compare and contrast the bel canto stylings of Elizabeth Futral and Anna Netrebko tonight when La Cieca hosts yet another of her live chats here on parterre.com. The live Met/Sirius broadcast of Bellini’s I puritani featuring Futral begins at 7:30 Eastern and the taped PBS telecast with Netrebko begins at 9:00. That’s here in New […]
You know those times when you look at your watch, and it’s only about 8:15, and you say to yourself, “Oh, man, this is going to be a long, long, long evening!” This is one of them.
A highly-placed source for Opera Orchestra of New York has expressed the hope that all is not quite lost for the company. In an email sent to a long-time supporter of OONY this morning, the source concedes “big problems because of the dramatic drop in box office” and admits the board is “hard pressed to […]
UPDATE: Opera Orchestra of New York music director Eve Queler has confided the sad news that the company is closing its doors permanently at the end of the current season to cast members of the upcoming L’arlesiana, La Cieca has just heard. Queler has reportedly spilled the beans to at least one other OONY mainstay, […]
“I could not have been alone in the audience in responding with something like parental concern when [pianist Till] Fellner appeared onstage. Lanky, rail-thin, wholesome-looking and still boyish at 34, he seemed as shy and awkward as ever . . . . A regimen of free weights at a gym in Vienna, where Mr. Fellner […]
In observance of the 100th anniversary of the Metropolitan Opera premiere of Madama Butterfly, La Cieca presents a podcast featuring the original cast of that production: Geraldine Farrar, Enrico Caruso and Antonio Scotti. The three superstars are heard in ten selections from Puccini’s score. Unnatural Acts of Opera
“At ‘Connect at the Met for Gay and Lesbian Singles,’ a social mixer at the Metropolitan Opera on February 2, prospective hookups sipped Champagne in between acts of Leos Janácek’s ‘Jenufa.’ This grim tragedy might seem unlikely to kindle thoughts of romance, but even those participants who failed to launch a relationship had the satisfaction […]
La Cieca has just heard the delightful news that her #1 favorite singer of all time, Renata Scotto, will grace the airwaves as Quizmistress during the Met broadcast of Il trittico on April 28.
In the latest episode of Unnatural Act of Opera, deluxe diva Grace Bumbry wails in a lesser-known corner of her vast repertoire, two operas by Richard Strauss. In performances two decades apart, she takes on the title role of Salome (1978) and Klytemnestra in Elektra (1997). La Cieca’s generosity extends even farther, though. As bonus, […]
The promotional trailer from Los Angeles Opera’s production of Mahagonny, starring the one-two punch of Audra MacDonald and Patti LuPone. (And Anthony Griffey makes three!)
Sad, sad, sad. When you do a Google News search for “paris and opera,” this is what you get.
Which diva has been secretly married for over a year to a male model barely half her age? Which diva (not the same one) is in talks to return to the Met in the same fach she “abandoned” over a decade ago? Which diva (neither of the above) seems to be inching her way out […]
… is over, you can hear a performance of the winning entry in the Madlib challenge, devised and written by the lovely and talented Le Cerf Agile and performed by the Apocryphal Opera Anecdote Theater of the Air Players. The actors have informed La Cieca that they are honored to be performing such top-notch material, […]
Our fourth and final runner-up in the Madlib competition. Do check back at Unnatural Acts of Opera later this evening when the Grand Prize winner’s creation will be performed as the latest episode of Apocryphal Opera Anecdote Theatre of the Air. Margaret Junktrunk Hello there and welcome to the Sirius Metropolitan Opera broadcast of Krzysztof […]
Gian Carlo Menotti and Anja Silja, a match made in heaven.
Margaret Junktrunk Hello there, I’m your announcer Margaret Junktrunk. Welcome to the Sirius Metropolitan Opera broadcast of Benjamin Britten‘s beloved masterpiece Bangers and Mash, a work that illustrates the idea, first expressed by Julia Child, “Eat, drink and be Mary,” or, as the libretto puts it, “Mangia, mangia!” In today’s performance we will hear tenor […]
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
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