Filth
If you’re wondering why the relatively inexperienced George Steel was tapped for the demanding job of hauling the New York City Opera out of the basement — instead of front-runner Francesca Zambello, well, maybe this is why: Zambello, currently in London creating a joint Royal Opera and Royal Ballet production of Tchaikovsky’s comic rarity “The…
A loyal reader calls this little number “the worst gown I’ve ever seen.” La Cieca she agrees that Mme. Guleghina’s fashion faux pas here just screams, “that was no lady, that was Lady Macbeth.” On the other hand, your doyenne has seen some rather ghastly frocks in her time, and she’s sure, cher public, that…
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.
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…
“Directed by Francesca Zambello, this Little Mermaid burdens its performers with ungainly guess-what-I-am costumes (by Tatiana Noginova) and a distracting set (by George Tsypin) awash in pastels gone sour and unidentifiable giant tchotchkes that suggest a Luau Lounge whipped up by an acid-head heiress in the 1960s. The whole enterprise is soaked in that sparkly…
Fiorenza Cedolins gets off to a bad start in this performance of Luisa Miller. La Cieca feels that if you’re going to sing like that, you really should avoid the Grayson Hall wig.
And don’t call her Shirley! It’s the one and only Ruby Hinds singing the cabaletta to “O mio Fernando” at a tribute to Doris Roberts (yeah, go figure) in Beverly Hills.
La Cieca is sure she doesn’t wish ill on anyone, but Maria Guleghina‘s return to Norma tonight is turning filthy already.
Only a month before her farewell to Las Vegas, pop hurleuse Céline Dion is already making plans for her future. According to Newsweek, “in February, she’ll begin an international tour. Then she plans on settling down in Florida, where she’ll see if she can turn herself into a movie star (her dream project is a…
This performance of the “alternative” entrance aria from Lucia di Lammermoor illustrates why the road not taken probably wasn’t such a good idea in the first place. Note, too, how the technical quality of the video production so aptly complements the efforts of the artiste.
La Cieca hopes you aren’t under the misapprehension that only stars (or would-be stars) are capable of filth-level performances. A true “sporcizianista” can fuck up even such apparently foolproof music as the few lines of Ines in the first act of Trovatore:
Or, “Fleming Subjugates La Scala.” Note the “polite” applause at the end of the performance.
In the words of the immortal Leonard Pinth-Garnell, “Monumentally ill-advised!” UPDATE: The video has, perhaps unsurprisingly, been removed from YouTube. There are a few stills, however, on the tenor’s website. By the way, if you think the costume looks familiar, that’s because you’ve seen it before.
From the 1983 public access TV show “Stairway to Stardom,” a singer with a fabulous name, Giuseppe Taormina. You know, a name like that is very hard to live up to, and, what do you know, live up to it he doesn’t.
As if opera weren’t dead enough already, this latest news is sure to finish pounding the stake through its heart. Paris Hilton (strike one!) has been signed for a leading role in the film version of Repo! The Genetic Opera. In this futuristic musical fantasy, La Hilton plays the daughter of organ-transplant tycoon Paul Sorvino…
A Met insider whispers that new chorus director Donald Palumbo, recently praised to the skies for his “tireless” efforts on Orfeo, may not want to stay tired for long. According to our source, “warning of vocal deterioration” letters have already been drafted to be sent to several members of the Met regular chorus, especially in…
A rare chance to hear Evangelia Callas (mother of Maria) tell her side of the story. This audio clip from a 1962 television interview is in rather dim sound, but we do get a sample of Evangelia’s singing voice! Evangelia
In yet another dazzling example of counter-intuitive programming, the New York City Opera has decided to exhume their quarter-century old ticky-tacky Hal Prince staging of that overexposed snoozefest Candide to replace their scuttled new production of Ragtime. (Gee, how long is it since we last heard Candide here in New York? It must be twenty…
Our editor JJ‘s busy week included a review of the Met’s Aegyptische Helena in Gay City News, and that panel La Cieca has been yammering about all week. As his presentation on the topic “Opera and Technology,” JJ introduced this little documentary about your own La Cieca.
La Cieca has just been informed that soprano Mary Dunleavy will participate in tonight’s panel discussion “Opera and Technology” at The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University. No word on whether La Dunleavy replaces or supplements the previously announced Lucy Shelton. Our own JJ will be there of course, along with…
Longtime friend of the ‘box Joe Conda sends La Cieca a new and exciting example of Filth: Caro nome.
You know those times when you look at your watch, and it’s only about 8:15, and you say to yourself, “Oh, man, this is going to be a long, long, long evening!” This is one of them.
La Cieca thought that now that Puritani has opened at the Met, it’s as good a time as any to review the company’s (rumored) bel canto plans for the next five years or so. Remember, everything in this life is uncertain, so please regard these “predictions” as the gossip they are. Anyway, La Cieca hopes…
At last La Cieca has discovered Renee Fleming‘s muse, or at least, as we have so often wondered “who the hell it was who taught her to sing that way.” Meet the divine Naoko Maeda, asking the musical question . . . “Bill” (from Show Boat)
