Questo e Quello
Has Los Angeles Opera mentioned lately that Billy Budd has an all-male cast?
The legend of the mermaid is ancient, and recently scientists have theorized that these legends might have arisen when humans encountered marine mammals such as whales, seals, or sea lions.
Wow, English National Opera sure is offering an amazing home-grown season this year… oh, wait.
La Cieca assumes, or at least hopes, such an encounter is currently taking place on some other plane. In slightly more mundane terms, though, Mike Richter did “meet” Claudio Abbado, though not in the context of his celebrated CD-ROM series.
Tenors Bryan Hymel (pictured) and Joseph Calleja redeem otherwise routine Puccini revivals at the Met, says Our Own JJ in the New York Observer.
Oddly enough, Eva Marton‘s interpretation of the Kostelnicka (pictured) goes unmentioned in Issue #38.
Our old friend Heather Mac Donald (not pictured) is back, ostensibly to mourn the loss of ‘Petrarchan intimacy with the past’ in the study of the humanities, but, reliably enough, she can’t help taking a swipe at Regietheater while she’s at it.
Anna is obviously over the flu!
“Oh yes, and there were seven naked men on the ground around her.”
Having recently reviewed Glass’s The Perfect American on this site and participated in spirited discussions about the film Saving Mr. Banks, it is perhaps not surprising that Walt Disney should spring to my mind as I watched the Unitel Classica video
of Die Zauberflote from the floating stage of the Bregenzer Festspiele.
I’ve always had a fondness for Giacomo Puccini’s Suor Angelica and apparently so did he since he often referred to it as, “among the finest of my children.”
“Her sweetheart dresses in blue and has big feet.”
“If Maria Callas remains the prototype of the stormy operatic diva, then Renée Fleming is the anti-Callas.”
Did someone ask Jungfer Marianne Leizmetzerin for a real operatic rarity?
Italian conductor Claudio Abbado, former musical director of La Scala, has died at the age of 80.
The leading lady of the Bayerische Staatsoper’s production of La Calisto has taken to the Twitters to respond to the recent discussion of her comments about Miley Cyrus.
What better way to take a break from the hurly-burly than with a discussion of off-topic and general interest subjects?
The internecine machinations of those who ruled—or sought to rule—the Roman Empire have long provided rich material for writers and composers, and on Thursday evening operamission continued its ambitious plan to stage in chronological order all of Handel’s operas by presenting one of the most delicious of those Roman-based works, Agrippina which premiered in Venice in 1709.
After four years of delegating union talks to his predecessor, Joseph Volpe, Met honcho Peter Gelb will now lead negotiations himself.
Beneath the pageantry, the paeans to German art and the self-referential allusions to the creative process, Die Meistersinger is a story about a community and human qualities like love, friendship, envy and hatred.
In a press release that was obviously sent in 1985 and for some bizarre reason only just arrived an hour ago, Lyric Opera of Chicago has announced the production of a new Ring cycle with Sir Andrew Davis conducting and David Pountney directing.
Talkative divette Danielle de Niese helpfully explains that Miley Cyrus uses her sexuality for the wrong reasons.
Oh, we’ve a veritable stew of canards to feast upon this week, cher public, courtesy of our old friend Rupert Christiansen.
In what seems to be turning into an informal salute to Kathleen Battle (not pictured), our gem from the Mike Richter collection this week is a performance of Un ballo in maschera, featuring Jose Carreras and Katia Ricciarelli (pictured).
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
