Songs for a maestro
Our Own Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin offers a program in tribute to the late maestro Claudio Abbado.
Questo e Quello
Disguise and dolls
While many performing arts organizations have been reducing their schedules or even closing, Opera Lafayette, a Washington DC-based group dedicated primarily to 17th and 18th century opera, has proven remarkably prosperous.
Ice box
Avoid the seasonal chill, cher public: there’s plenty of discussion of off-topic and general interest subject to keep you warm here at parterre box.
Male fraud
Has Los Angeles Opera mentioned lately that Billy Budd has an all-male cast?
Destination moon
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.
Britannia rule the bayou!
Wow, English National Opera sure is offering an amazing home-grown season this year… oh, wait.
Mike Richter meets Claudio Abbado
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.
B. F. deal
Tenors Bryan Hymel (pictured) and Joseph Calleja redeem otherwise routine Puccini revivals at the Met, says Our Own JJ in the New York Observer.
“I felt the hand of Death”
Oddly enough, Eva Marton‘s interpretation of the Kostelnicka (pictured) goes unmentioned in Issue #38.
Dead European white males once again in jeopardy
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.
Dear Penthouse Forum
“Oh yes, and there were seven naked men on the ground around her.”
Lake, placid
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.
Habit, forming
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.”
Mary Garden is in love
“Her sweetheart dresses in blue and has big feet.”
Tales of the planet Htrae
“If Maria Callas remains the prototype of the stormy operatic diva, then Renée Fleming is the anti-Callas.”
A night at the Roxburgh
Did someone ask Jungfer Marianne Leizmetzerin for a real operatic rarity?
Claudio Abbado 1933-2014
Italian conductor Claudio Abbado, former musical director of La Scala, has died at the age of 80.
Danielle fires back
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.
A breath of fresh air
What better way to take a break from the hurly-burly than with a discussion of off-topic and general interest subjects?
Stage mother
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.
Local man
After four years of delegating union talks to his predecessor, Joseph Volpe, Met honcho Peter Gelb will now lead negotiations himself.
Meadow festival
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.
By Adriel
6 comments
Out of Touch
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.
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).