Blind Item
Which beloved American opera company is urging patrons to keep the faith by hiring a controversial artist as its next General Director?
If you already know the answer to this one, keep it under your hat!
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.
Which much-lauded gem of an American artist is about to emerge from retirement?
Are plans for reopening America’s opera houses in the winter of 2020-2021 unrealistic?
Which company plans to rescue opera, or at least their abbreviated season for 2020-2021, by programming a complete work for their opening night…
Which soprano, who’s so talented you’d think her career would go on forever, has quietly decided to retire following her current not every eventful season?
Which diva, whose performance of the first act is admittedly note-perfect, is making management lose sleep because she’s hasn’t yet attempted the second or third? (Maybe they’re worried she won’t cancel.)
Which red-ink stained opera company’s backers have made broad hints that they want a full-time director and fundraiser onboard — instead of the current General Director who can barely spare one day per week?
La Cieca hears that Andrea Bocelli dropped by the Met yesterday to audition for Peter Gelb. The accompanist, on dit, was none other than James Levine!
Which Met diva has just vetoed her renascence as a bel canto grande dame? So daunting a role must have given her cold feet, or at least mistle toe.
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?
Which Metropolitan Opera diva has eased her transition into the visual-intensive Gelb era with the assistance of a plastic surgeon recently featured in W magazine and the New York Post? This Park Avenue doctor’s “short scar” facelifts promise a dramatically rejuvenated jawline with shorter recovery time and minimal scarring — just the thing for those…
Which late-blooming soprano, hailed as a savior only last season, has now been stripped of her “prima donna” status? Who knew the winter would come so soon?
First off, La Cieca should tell you that her producer/alter ego JJ will be heard this afternoon on WNYC’s talk show “Soundcheck” discussing (what else?) L’affaire Alagna. The program begins at 2:00 PM and JJ is scheduled to be heard in the final segment between 2:30 and 3:00. “Soundcheck” gained notoriety last month when uber-diva…
Walkout tenor Roberto Alagna is just generally pissed at the whole La Scala Aida experience, frankly. Even before the “buu” incident at last night’s performance, Bobby was spewing in an interview with La Repubblica that he (and the other singers in Aida) were being treated like second-class citizens: “La verità è che, in Italia, ormai…
So, more scoop on that “emergency meeting” La Cieca hinted at yesterday. It seems that the costumes for the Met’s new production of The First Emperor arrived from China in the last couple of weeks. La Cieca is told that when the boxes were unpacked, the wardrobe staff complained of a strong chemical odor emanating…
As La Cieca mentioned last month, the 2007-2008 Met season will include a new production of Satyagraha, the Gandhi-themed opera by Philip Glass and Constance De Jong. And now La Cieca has been informed that there is actual basis in fact for her wild surmising. Darling Dawn Fatale drew La Cieca’s attention to an announcement…
On this day of Thanksgiving, there are so many things for which La Cieca would like to give thanks. But enough about that. Here’s one thing for which La Cieca would like to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Among the participants in this year’s Macy’s Thanksgiving parade: none other than The Beautiful Voice, or, as…
Which Met prima donna recently enraged her maestro when she forgot (or refused) to bring him out a curtain call at his final performance of the run? In recounting the story of this obvious snub, the “always friendly and downright jocular” conductor becomes so emotional that he begins to gesticulate as wildly as he does…
Fred Kirshnit joins the legions dazzled by the radiance that is Millo. In The Sun, Kirshnit writes People who love Aprile Millo really love Ms. Millo, and so interspersed among the nearly capacity crowd dressed in their finery as the National Italian American Foundation honored the soprano were the occasional young man or pair of…
The scene: Backstage at the Richard Tucker Gala. The situation: Diva X is onstage, singing music from the opera _________, a role for which Diva Y (also on the bill) is famous. Diva Z is among the onlookers while Diva Y “holds court.” [The guests chatter.] Diva Y: Silence! What’s that music! Diva Z: Why,…
Where else would La Cieca be this Sunday but basking the the star radiance of the Richard Tucker Music Foundation’s annual gala? Now! With 100% more Met artists, including Elizabeth Futral, Samuel Ramey, José Cura, René Pape, James Morris, Marcello Giordani, Patricia Racette, Joseph Calleja, Angela Marambio, Sandra Radvanovsky and Aprile Millo. The galalicious fun…
A video of Brad Pitt in wet underpants. Now, you would think that there is no way that such a video would be less than fascinating, right? Well, you’d be wrong, because the video is directed by the only man in the world who could make Brad Pitt in wet underpants look boring. Robert Wilson,…
La Cieca hosts a chat tonight on the subject of the Met’s season premiere of Rigoletto, which also marks the first RealNetworks free streaming broadcast of a Met performance. (The performance will also be broadcast on Sirius.) The room will open at 7:45 PM.
