Questo e Quello
East is West and West is East—the border ever less easy to fix.
Starting right this minute, Lucia di Lammermoor starring Diana Damrau and Joseph Calleja, webcast by Sonostream!
La Cieca apologizes for her tardiness in saluting dear Mary this week, but she thinks you will agree it’s worth the wait.
Opening last night, the most buzzed-about show at the Lincoln Center Festival was inspired by a 16th-century Chinese folk tale of a sassy Monkey, who uses his magic powers and awesome kung fu skills to retrieve holy scriptures from India.
So guess who makes more money than Peter Gelb and works less, sometimes a lot less? Answer: a lot of people.
The big news from Bel Canto at Caramoor’s presentation of Les Vêpres Siciliennes last Saturday is far from unexpected.
Stay cool and comment on off-topic and general interest subjects, cher public.
We waited eagerly to hear the Munich-born Jonas Kaufmann make his role debut as Manrico at the Bavarian State Opera as well the German-Greek soprano Anja Harteros take on Leonora’s bravura difficult arias.
“Say! What about throwing your very own baby in the fire by accident? There’s one for you. Doesn’t get much more implausible than that!”
In belated recognition of the 70th birthday of Eva Marton (she celebrated that milestone on June 18) La Cieca offers a particularly fiery performance of Tosca from Manila in 1979.
The complete recording of Der Ring des Nibelungen conducted by Christian Thielemann at the Bayreuth Festival is now on sale
for only $5.99. And, no, I am not making this up.
Everything about Aleksandra Kurzak’s new disc
is a variation on the term “fioritura.”
One of the most familiar of all operas in an unfamiliar guise: the original (1853) score of La traviata, heard here in a 2001 performance at the Verdi Festival di Busseto.
Of all of Verdi’s operas. Aida is the one I find least interesting dramatically.
What, you might ask, could a middle-of-the-road middlebrow stage director add to this monumental chef-d’oeuvre?
Before we Yanks all go our merry ways for the July 4 holiday, here’s a quick reminder of this summer’s must-see.
“Gheorghiu has admitted a romance with Cézar, a flamboyant Romanian counter-tenor…”
More virtual opera for those poor souls starved of the real thing: Rossini’s Ermione starring Anna Caterina Antonacci!
The Tutto Verdi series from the Teatro Regio Parma may be said to relate to the great Giuseppe Verdi’s oeuvre as the burning of the library at Alexandria did to classical literature.
“But Thais is a French opera.”
It has come to La Cieca’s attention that the New York Opera Calendar is sadly devoid of content until Saturday of this week.
La Cieca, appearing live on tape, extends her thanks to parterre’s advertisers for the month of July.
As soon as you are finished celebrating the gay pride of yourself and/or others, cher public, feel free to comment here on matters off-topic and general.
Shocker of the century! The New York Times reveals that Met singers are miked!
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
