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Readers, writers, and stars reflect on the 30th anniversary of “the most essential blog in opera” (NYT)
By parterre box
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parterre box turns 30 on Sunday and writers from around the box are reflecting on the legacy of founder James Jorden and three decades of “remembering when opera was queer and dangerous and exciting and making it that way again”
By Dawn Fatale
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Save the Date: Celebrating James Jorden — Feb 3, 2024
Join Parterre Box for a celebration of James’s life and legacy the afternoon of February 3, 2024 in New York City.
parterre box turns 30 on Sunday and writers from around the box are reflecting on the legacy of founder James Jorden and three decades of “remembering when opera was queer and dangerous and exciting and making it that way again”
By John Yohalem
The writers of the Box and James’s friends are saddened to announce the death of the inimitable founder of Parterre Box
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parterre box, “the most essential blog in opera” (New York Times), is now booking display and sponsored content advertising for the 2023-2024 season. Join Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Warner Classics and many others in reaching your target audience through parterre box.
On this day in 1979 Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler‘s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street opens at the Uris Theatre, to run 557 performances.
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…
By La Cieca
Perhaps the last people in the world still interested in Jerry Springer: the Opera are trying to get together a protest against the January 29 Carnegie Hall concert performance of the “patently obscene and viciously anti-Christian musical.” Our own JJ, you know, saw the show in London way back when Jenny Larmore was still fat,…
By La Cieca
“The presence of the voiceless Rosalind Plowright in the supporting role of Gertrude demonstrates the folly of the Met’s notoriously Britcentric artistic administration. Surely there are dozens of equally over-the-hill American mezzos who could have shrieked the role just as atonally.” Our own JJ reviews the Met’s productions of Hansel and Gretel, Die Walküre and…
By La Cieca
La Cieca pulled a string or two and managed to get permission to embed a clip from the VAI Lucia so recently lauded by Our Own Niel Rishoi. Of course YouTube video and audio is severely compressed, but the imaginative viewer will surely get the gist that this is a performance for the ages.
By La Cieca
The Washington National Opera has announced their 2008-2009 season will feature headliners Renée Fleming and Andrea Bocelli under the artistic direction of Plácido Domingo. According to an article by Our Own Anne Midgette in today’s Washington Post, The Beautiful Voice will grace a new production of Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia, an opera that has deep personal…
By La Cieca
“Legendary maestro Tullio Serafin once said that trying to perform Bellini’s Norma without a great soprano is as futile as attempting to cook risotto without rice. This month, the Metropolitan Opera experimented with such a recipe with less than palatable results.” Our Own JJ reviews Hasmik Papian‘s Druidess in Gay City News.
By La Cieca
Our Own Gualtier Maldè reflects on Maria Guleghina’s first Met Norma. True confession: I love Maria Guleghina, I really, really love her. I know her flaws but her strengths are such that they sweep aside severe demerits that would consign any other artist to filth. Among contemporary singers she is one artist who thinks big,…
By La Cieca
“Soprano Lauren Flanigan turned her vaunted acting skills to the task of portraying the sophisticated allure of Vanessa, hampered more than a little by a stiff auburn wig and dowdy costumes that left her looking like Nellie Oleson’s mother. Happily, on November 8, Flanigan was in superb voice, sailing fearlessly up to fiery high B’s…
By La Cieca
