Anita hero
“Rachvelishvili sang Carmen, the role of her 2009 breakthrough, hundreds of times, and was scheduled to ring in 2024 as Bizet’s classic antiheroine in the splashy premiere of a new production at the Met.”
Diva
Fresh princess
Diva of the moment Sondra Radvanovsky previews yet another great role: Puccini’s Turandot.
Serve with caviar and vodka
“It was all surprisingly good? Even the Party Pork, which has you marinate a piece of pork neck in vermouth and steak seasoning. It shouldn’t work, and yet it did.”
Beauty and the ‘Bis’
Maria José Siri gives a historic encore performance of the aria “Io son l’umile ancella” during the March 25 performance of Adriana Lecouvreur at the Ópera de Las Palmas in Gran Canaria.
The vanities of the divas
Maria Callas and Montserrat Caballé are two of the most highly-regarded and esteemed exponents of the great soprano roles in both bel canto and in the operas of Verdi, and their recordings are held as artistic triumphs of the highest order.
Living in the future
What does the opera singer of the future look like?
It’s the operas that got small!
No one ever leaves a star. That’s what makes one a star.
Singing through
A near-full house attended the Jessye Norman Memorial Celebration at the Met on Sunday afternoon, the auditorium packed with family, friends, colleagues, and fans of the late soprano, who passed away on September 30 of this year.
Master of her Domain
The film of that awful play Master Class will begin lensing next week in Detroit. Faye Dunaway directs and stars as Maria Callas. [Detroit Free Press] UPDATE: Edited to include this much funnier photo suggesting La Dunaway has decided to play the Audra McDonald part.
Joyce DiDonato in Maria Stuarda
La DiDonato is joined here by Gabriele Fontana and Eric Cutler in this 2005 video.
Frocked up
UPDATED: Now with even more operatic tackiness! A sampling of Diva Dress Disasters submitted by the cher public.Seen worse disasters? Email La Cieca!
Singing, actress
For those of you who were stumped by Lady Number Six, here’s the mysterious dame herself, Galina Vishnevskaya, in a more accustomed version of Lady Macbeth, the 1966 film by Mikhail Shapiro of Katerina Izmailova. The great diva returned to the screen only last year in Alexandra (directed by Alexander Sokurov), playing an elderly woman […]
Ferocious!
The unusual and undreamed-of videos just keep popping up on YouTube. Here’s a scene from Norma with Elinor Ross and Mario del Monaco!
No Sleep ‘Til Sunnyside
Not a whole lot of news on matters operatic in the past couple of days, so La Cieca has decided a competitive quiz is in order. The clip below is the “Sleepwalking Scene” from Verdi’s Macbeth divided among 14 sopranos and mezzo-sopranos. All you have to do is name the 14 singers in the correct […]
Weird sister
The inimitable, irrepressible Miss Tallulah Bankhead once more graces the studio of Unnatural Acts of Opera with a guest appearance on Apocryphal Opera Anecdote Theater. The legendary stage star joins Our Own La Cieca and Miss Cratchitt to perform a pair of scenes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. The main event, of course, is the second and […]
Don’t want to be a prima donna, donna, donna
“Believe you me, there is a lot of drama in the opera world, and you have to rise above it …. I really don’t get into the drama. … I don’t cause scandals and I don’t throw fits. For me, the thing to be admired is to be on time, be prepared and to give […]
This is my belief, in brief
That grand old man of music André Previn is writing another opera, following up on the clamorous success of 1998’s A Streetcar Named Desire. The commission for Houston Grand Opera is Brief Encounter, based on Noel Coward’s one-act play Still Life as well as the screenplay for the eponymous film. (First Tennessee Williams, then Noel […]
Lady Be Good
La Cieca is happy to announce a special performance to mark the return from exile of Unnatural Acts of Opera. Our program is a reprise of the first opera ever podcast on this site, Verdi’s Macbeth featuring Shirley Verrett and Piero Cappuccilli. Claudio Abbado conducts the orchestra and chorus of La Scala on December 7, […]
Wait ’til you’ve refined it
A controversial new production of Massenet’s erotically-tinged opera Manon featuring “it girl” soprano Anna Netrebko opened last night in…. Oh, all right. Obviously that’s not our Anna. In fact it’s ecdysiast Dita Von Teese performing her signature “cocktail glass” strip. The model and performer (whose adorably mousy real name is Heather Sweet) has accepted an […]
Shirley, no jest!
La Cieca hears that the one and only Miss Shirley Verrett will grace the airwaves this afternoon as an intermission guest during the broadcast of Macbeth. Do join La Cieca in the comments section of this posting to enjoy this afternoon’s broadcast — especially the words of La Verrett!
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
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!
I’ll take the fall
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).
