La Cieca
“Pampered” Australian sheep who listen to opera have (once again!) produced the world’s finest wool. Rumors from Salzburg suggest the parting of the ways with Renee Fleming was not so amicable as we are led to believe: the word La Cieca keeps hearing is “Scheissdosende.” (Well, actually, she just invented that word, but it sums…
According to playbill.com, Cecilia Bartoli is replacing Renée Fleming in Salzburg’s all-star concert celebrating the 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth on January 27. It seems Renaaay demurred from singing the concert aria “Ch’io mi scordi di te” for “vocal reasons.” (Good to hear it wasn’t because she had objections to the text or anything.) Bartoli…
Ah, the 1960s! Corelli and Nilsson in Turandot! Tebaldi in Gioconda! Freni‘s debut! Milanov‘s farewell! Beverly‘s breakthrough Giulio Cesare! The two-night blizzard testing the loyalties of the standees queued for Maria‘s return to the Met! (And let’s not forget the war in Vietnam, LSD, and the miniskirt!) By an odd coincidence, La Cieca’s podcast and…
… that a certain baton-wielder is currently modeling jewelry from the Martha Stewart collection.
“Her quirky personality shines through once she gets to know you . . . . In the home, she is very sweet and quite affectionate, however she is not clingy or needy for your undivided attention at all times . . . . She’s not a hyper or noisy girl, but she has a wealth…
As a supplement to this week’s podcast of Faust, a video of Alfredo Kraus singing “Salut, demeure” in 1972.
Another one of those talkative “Met insiders” has spilled a whole canful of beans regarding the upcoming Peter Gelb regime at the Met. The new GM, we are told, plans to import “alternative” productions of the warhorse operas (e.g., Boheme, Tosca, Traviata) to serve as a kind of artistic counterpoint to the ultra-traditional Zeffirelli &…
So it seems Opera Ireland was shipping sets and costumes for a borrowed Traviata production from Germany to Dublin. A routine customs check of the hoopskirts and chaises longues turned up an interesting if non-traditional prop: a 6 kilo bag of cocaine worth about half a million Euros. Since this was not a Christopher Alden…
Just when La Cieca thought there could be no more opera this late in the summer, suddenly she finds out that something called REPO! The Genetic Opera opens tonight for a limited run at the Wings Theater on Christopher Street. The piece is described so: “a futuristic rock musical, Repo! takes place during an epidemic…
“When his career began, he was singing opposite women old enough to be his grandmother, he said – but female leads are now young enough to be his granddaughter.” Thanks, Leporello, make a note of that in your book, will you? Placido Domingo is close to retirement.
Just a reminder that some of the humor from the print version of parterre box is archived online: New Roles for CeciliaThe ImpresariosThe Ballad of Billy BuddAll About SteveA Bitchy ClassJust Jessye!Ain’t it a pretty voice?Valley of the DivasThe Texaco Opera QueensBartoli Meets SwensonBeefcake in OperaTen Rules for Stage DirectorsMissed OpportunitiesTen Great Awakening Scenes
La Cieca hopes you enjoy her radio show (currently featuring an all-Virginia Zeani program) and would like to know: what do you want to hear on “Il Gran Teatro della Cieca?” Complete operas? Highlights? A concert by “Il Divo?” Email your suggestions to [email protected].
Breaking News! According to a source at San Francisco Opera, David Gockley has accepted the company’s offer to serve as their new General Manager — exactly as rumored and then predicted here in La Cieca’s column!
Let the dancing in the streets begin! Jonathan Miller, who has spent the last two decades multitasking between creating pretentiously dull opera productions and whingeing about the stupidity of opera and opera singers, has at long last decided to call it quits. Following a sure-to-be-listless staging of La Clemenza di Tito in April 2005, the…
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.
