La Cieca
La Cieca has just heard the shocking, shocking! news that Margaret Juntwait will step down as host on Metropolitan Opera Radio.
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What impressed La Cieca at the Caramoor concert of Semiramide on Friday was not so much the quality of the performance (though that was on a solidly high level) but the magnificence of the work itself. This magnificence stands out now in even greater relief after the comparison with Les Huguenots later in the weekend.
“Thrilling musical ideas rapidly alternate with banalities, as if Meyerbeer feared he was writing for an audience with the attention span of a gnat.” Our Own JJ weighs in on Les Huguenots in the New York Post.
Congratulations and best wishes to newly wed couple Ira Siff and Hans Pieter Heijnis, who were married Saturday in a politically-charged ceremony in Amsterdam. [via Reuters]
Well observed, grrg! For a guy with no vowels in his name, you picked up pretty quickly that our most recent Regie quiz depicted Il mondo della luna. So now, vowelled and unvowelled alike, you are challenged to identify this week’s mystery opera! (Remember: if you recognize the production, keep still while others guess!)
Some songs just steadfastly repel the crossover treatment. Some years ago Karita Mattila came to grief on “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” and now Anne Sofie von Otter doesn’t do much better. (Why does it always sound like they coached this number with The Opera Milf?)
The atmosphere around Gotham may become rather more bizarre sometime in the next couple of years when Rufus Wainwright brings his opera Prima Donna into New York.
La Cieca has to admit that what she thought would be a bang-up notion turned out to be a total damp squib: the “Letter” competition failed to rouse much interest. The sole (albeit very fine) entry follows the jump.
Candid snapshots of La Cieca’s arrival this morning at the parterre box editorial offices.
Yesterday, a performance of Lucrezia Borgia was telecast in Europe (previously recorded during a July 6 performance). This Christof Loy production from the Bayerische Staatsoper features Edita Gruberova in her first staged Lucrezia, in the company of Pavol Breslik (Gennaro) and Alice Coote (Maffio Orsini). A selection of clips follows the jump.
In a startling and sudden transition from high to pop culture, the Bayreuther Festspiele GmbH has announced they are producing a television film about their recent changeover in leadership to a partnership between half-sisters Eva Wagner-Pasquier and Katharina Wagner. Casting for the film is just what you might have expected.
La Cieca may have pointed this out before, but it’s worth pointing out again. Is this film clip the ultimate Renée Fleming experience, or what?
La Cieca is dubious about the effectiveness of City Opera’s new advertising campaign.
La Cieca finally finished listening to her review copy of the Beverly Sills reissue Norma last night, a recording she hasn’t heard since, oh, sometime during the disco era. This is first time this recording has appeared on CD, at least in wide release, and naturally going to be of interest to Sills (or Shirley…
“The Met now presents works by directors like Luc Bondy or Patrice Chereau – the people who worked in Europe 20 years ago and whose work was derided from afar.” Once she gets past the librettese (“derided from afar?”) La Cieca thinks she will like this Nikolaus Bachler. [Deutsche Welle]
Opera Orchestra of New York will stage a cautious comeback next season with a program of solo recitals and “intimate and informal dinner-hour recitals and talks” featuring the irreplaceable Ira Siff. Full recitals are programmed by “Golden Voiced Diva” Aprile Millo (celebrating the 25th anniversary of her OONY debut) and Eglise Gutiérrez, most recently heard…
Our Own JJ braved the wilds of the Lincoln Center Festival, where he saw and reviewed The Peasant Opera, though for reasons best known to himself he omitted any mention of the giant jeweled dildo. [NYP]
La Cieca’s old, old, old friend Kelly Rinne (who, not so incidentally, masterminded the rescue of parterre.com during the late server unpleasantness) is launching a new show on ClassicalMusicBroadcast.com. The show features new releases of instrumental, vocal, opera and modern classical music, and Kelly is looking for a great name for the show. If you’ve…
The beloved soprano is at least 96 years old today. (Photo by Gjon Mili.)
Your dithery doyenne sometimes gets so bogged down in local drama such as the continuing story that is NYCO that she overlooks the occasional outlying scandale. Such is the case with what she will henceforth call The Mishegas in Milwaukee. This brouhaha over the direction of the Skylight Opera has (per La Cieca’s informant) escalated…
Anna Netrebko and Piotr Beczala are seen (briefly) in this clip from Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, as produced at Baden-Baden.
So says Our Own JJ, who had a lovely time at Caramoor’s L’elisir d’amore, and lived to tell the tale at musicalamerica.com.
La Cieca has just heard the very interesting news that Gotham Chamber Opera, in partnership with the American Museum of Natural History and in association with American Repertory Theater, willl present Il mondo della luna by Joseph Haydn, in a new production staged by Diane Paulus, director of Hair, which received the 2009 Tony Award…
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