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UPDATED: Now with even more operatic tackiness! A sampling of Diva Dress Disasters submitted by the cher public.Seen worse disasters? Email La Cieca!
By La Cieca
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In order to stem what seems to be a rising tide of anonymous postings (and to save herself the hassle of deleting them) La Cieca offers these instructions on how to post comments using a Nickname. When you click on the “POST A COMMENT” link, you go to the “Leave your comment” form. At the…
By La Cieca
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MILA comes to New York and San Francisco
Sung in English, Cantonese and Tagalog, Mila explores the cultural diversity of Hong Kong at New York’s Angel Orensanz Center (Dec. 7) and San Francisco’s Wilsey Center for Opera (Dec. 12). The hour-long opera is the creation of Eli Marshall, Candace Chong and Chu Hei Chan, with music director Neal Goren.
La Cieca’s DVR hard drive will be overflowing by the end of this November since the indispensable Turner Classic Movies has scheduled a whole month of “guest programmers.” Among the celebrities gracing the tube to introduce their favorite flicks will be some of particular interest to the parterre crowd. For example, this Thursday, November 8,…
By La Cieca
An interview with director Krzysztof Warlikowski in the current issue of Takt, the house magazine for the Bayerisches Staatsoper, confirms that you, cher public, were exactly right about the “slant” of his new production of Yevgeny Onegin opening tonight in Munich. In the interview (available online, as is the rest of the magazine, in pdf…
By La Cieca
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Fabiano To Headline ArtSmart Benefit Concert
On December 4, at 8:00 pm, world-renowned tenor Michael Fabiano inaugurates a new initiative at Merkin Hall in collaboration with Classical Vocal Arts (CVA) International entitled, “A Passion for Song.” This benefit concert will raise funds for the ArtSmart program and will be accompanied by pianist Kamal Khan.
UPDATE: And now, my dears, we’ve even reached the AP! (How long before we’re on the UP and every other damn P?) La Cieca’s young, young, young friend Maury D’anatto writes: “Too funny, La Cieca: did you coin hunkentenor? Because there was just this intermission interview with Joseph Kaiser that went somewhat off the rails…
By La Cieca
Ever since everyone’s favorite apocryphal diva (with the possible minority exception of Lena Geyer), the oracular Oltrano herself, Marwdew Czgowchwz, vanished across the ocean at a time (time out of mind) that was somehow both 1956 and 1975 and yet neither, La Cieca, like all the rest of you, has reread her first copy of…
By La Cieca
La Cieca predicted a cast change earlier, and what do you know, so it came to pass! Soprano Lisette Oropesa will sing the Tuesday prima of the Met’s revival of Le nozze di Figaro and at least one more performance. She is jumping in for the enceinte Isabel Bayrakdarian. Ms. Oropesa is not only a…
By La Cieca
La Cieca wasn’t “in the house” for the Lucia prima last night like so many of her colleagues; instead she hosted perhaps the most popular of all her online chats thus far. Approximately 120 of you cher public logged in at some point during the night, with 75 or so on average staying for the…
By La Cieca
La Cieca’s chat returns Monday night to welcome in the new Met season. Topic of discussion: the evening’s prima of the new production of Lucia di Lammermoor, as broadcast on SIRIUS Internet Radio. Please check back on this site after 5:00 pm Monday for a link to the room, which will open at 6:15 pm…
By La Cieca
Those of the cher public who want to attend opera on the cheap or who just want to get a jump on the season should check out New York City Opera’s Opera for All program. The NYCO is offering three performances this week with all tickets priced at $25: a gala concert on September 6,…
By La Cieca
Congratulations to NYT writer Michael Kimmelman, whose post-mortem on Katharina Wagner‘s Bayreuth Meistersinger contains a sentence that beats all world’s records for running, standing and equivocation: The approach is not, in the abstract, without merit, Beckmesser having always seemed a proto-Jew to Wagner, awaiting modern redemption; the opera’s end comes across as the screed it…
By La Cieca
To wind up this summer’s Wagner festival on Unnatural Acts of Opera, La Cieca plans to play the composer’s first “canonical” opera, Der Fliegende Hollander. But which live performance, she wonders. That’s where you come in, cher public. La Cieca lists below a selection of exciting live Hollanders, and you get to vote on which…
By La Cieca
Bayreuth scion-apparent Katharina Wagner‘s production of Die Meistersinger opened yesterday at the Festspielhaus. As you can see, this production is rather curiously cast with David Beckham as Walther and Aprile Millo as Eva. Oh, well, all right, La Cieca must have her little joke, you know. The tenor is in fact Klaus Florian Vogt, whom…
By La Cieca
More proof (as if any were needed) that 70 is the new 50: “Viva la Diva: Gala zum 70. Geburtstag von Grace Bumbry.” The concert (performed at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival on July 17 of this year) featured the septuagenarian siren in a demanding program of arias and scenes from Aida, Ernani, Les Troyens and…
By La Cieca
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Opera Lafayette presents John Blow’s Venus and Adonis
Renowned French lutenist Thomas Dunford returns as musical director of Venus and Adonis, a work which prefigured Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas. Mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre and bass-baritone Douglas Williams return to Opera Lafayette’s stage in the title roles, and soprano Sarah Shafer makes her company debut as Cupid.
