The thrill of first nighting
For your perusal and social planning, cher public, parterre’s 2013-2014 New York Opera Calendar is now online and current through the end of the season.
Questo e Quello
Into the wild green yonder
Mark your calendars and set your alarm clocks, cher public, for 13 October 2013 at 18:00 CEST (that is, 2:00 PM in New York City) when individual tickets for the 2014 Bayreuth Festival will go on sale online.
His Meister’s voice
Take a nice long break, cher public, to discuss off-topic and general interest subjects.
Everybody wants to take a vow
Congratulations and best wishes to Kennedy Center President Michael M. Kaiser and and economist John Roberts, who will be married tonight at the performing arts center in a ceremony officiated by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
What a day for an auto-da-fé
Teresa Berganza is the latest superannuated superstar to jump on the “I hate regie” bandwagon.
Ring? What ring?
All right, I admit it; I finally broke down and read the program notes for the Ring in the Bayreuth program book.
Opening knight
The 1965 season was a time of big changes at the Vienna State Opera.
By Adriel
9 comments
Something unseen
Which opera company has informed a budding composer they are willing to add his new opera to their repertoire for next season… so long as said composer can kick in the estimated $2 million it would cost to present his work?
Bark, not Bayreuth
Is Der Ring des Nibelungen responsible for the transformation of Seattle from a gray, damp, low-rise Boeing company town where half the jokes had punchlines in Norwegian (and were about lutefisk in any case) into today's booming cultural metropolis? I like to think so.
In the kingdom of the blind
Which veteran artist delivers doubly sad news this week, canceling an opera that was written for her?
The Platz thickens
I’m told that the public were, if hardly enthusiastic, at least ambivalent toward the Frank Castorf Ring up until the first performance of Siegfried, at which point things got really ugly and the booing started in earnest.
Pause
Let’s take a moment, liebes Publikum, to discuss off-topic and general interest subjects.
Flame off
First things first: working from the limited evidence of half or less than half of Frank Castorf’s production of the Ring, I don’t see any evidence of contempt for the audience or whatever you want to call it.
First impressions
There are some productions that “introduce” themselves quite clearly early on: for example, the Patrice Chereau Ring puts it cards on the table very frankly with the image of the hydroelectric dam populated by grisette Rhinedaughters.
Here in Bayreuth
Our Own JJ (right) reports he is ready and relatively un-jetlagged for Das Rheingold tonight at Bayreuth. He'll have comments afterward.
A Faustian bargain
What we have here is the grandest opera never heard.
A pair of kings
Opera Teen (pictured) approves of this summer’s program at the Glimmerglass Festival.
Shaken, not stirred
Among the highlights of the first performance of Camille was the fact that its only solo was a Parisian ballad sung by ‘Our Mary’ Garden atop a table in her fashionable salon and its only chorus a few ribald lines by a roomful of guests who had drunk enough champagne to be feeling pretty gay.
Hung up
What other company indeed but the Bayerische Staatsoper would commission David LaChapelle to photograph Diana Damrau for their portrait gallery?
Cows and chickens make better friends than I’ve ever met in Paris
Until the Baron de Varville returns, cher public, take this opportunity to indulge in discussion of off-topic and general interest subjects.
All the world loves a crown
Seventeenth century opera remains the true connoisseur’s delight partly because it’s so rarely done.
Lady be good
Anna Netrebko‘ s new CD of Verdi arias seems to be a bold, defiant, “in your face” statement about the direction she is taking with her career.
Canard à l’anglaise
Rupert Christiansen (not pictured) writes, “…a right old mash-up of Meistersinger, confusing, contorting and complicating something which should communicate with radiant emotional and intellectual simplicity.”
Revolutionary étude
Thérèse is a compact work consisting of two short acts and clocks in just under seventy minutes.
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).