Questo e Quello
On this day in 1965 the musical Flora, the Red Menace opened at the Alvin Theater in New York.
Theater an der Wien did justice to Bizet earlier this season with a cast starring Diana Damrau, Dmitry Korchak, and Nathan Gunn.
On this day in 1774 Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette became King and Queen of France.
The Deutsche Opera an Rhein production of Handel’s Xerxes (which is shared with the Berlin Komische Oper), though I saw it three nights ago, has taken a while to settle down in my brain.
On this day in 1868 the city of Reno, Nevada was founded.
The creation of Kurt Weill’s The Eternal Road and its lately remodeled avatar, The Road of Promise, boiled down and premiered at Carnegie Hall Wednesday night by the Collegiate Chorale and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, was an intricate process, far more interesting than the work itself.
Happy 31st birthday tenor Michael Fabiano!
A problem with scheduling an opera-intensive trip is that you don’t always hear and see the shows in optimum order.
On this day in 1718 the city of New Orleans was founded by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville.
Our Own JJ reviews Orlando and Early Shaker Spirituals in the Observer.
On this day La Cieca and faithful sidekick Dawn Fatale have arrived in Düsseldorf to hear Valer Sabadus sing Xerxes in a production by Stefan Herheim.
It will come to no surprise to followers of the direction of Stefan Herheim (or to readers of La Cieca’s gushing fangirl appreciations of his work) that his Stuttgart production of Der Rosenkavalier was as “delightfully busy” as we have come to expect.
Mahagonny is one of my two favorite operas (care to guess the other?), but it’s damned hard to find a well-sung performance (with opera singers, not Broadway divas) without cuts.
On Saturday, a new company called Bare Opera gave its first performance, a double bill of Debussy’s L’Enfant Prodigue and Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges, at the Robert Miller Gallery in Chelsea.
Born on this day Pia Zadora.
The first stop on The Cieca and Dawn Regietournee 2015 is the Stuttgart Opera.
Born on this day in 1906 actress Mary Astor.
On this day in 1536 Anne Boleyn was arrested and taken to the Tower of London.
Some things just naturally go together, like parterre box and our beloved advertisers.
On this day in 1786 Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro premiered in Wien.
On this day in 1803 the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the young nation.
Director R.B. Schlather and his team explored Handel’s Orlando and the results, as seen at Monday night’s final presentation, proved uncommonly stimulating.
Your doyenne and her faithful confidante Dawn Fatale are off later this week for a safari, seeking the wild Regie in its natural habitat.
Happy 90th birthday to French ballerina and actress Zizi Jeanmaire.
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
