O happy canard
There are so many neglected operas like Antony and Cleopatra or Les Huguenots that have been treated so unfairly…
Questo e Quello
Blind as… an item
Which Tony and Emmy winner plans to max out his acting resume by appearing at the Met next season, though, oddly enough, not in Traviata?
Blind item
If you’re a hard-core opera buff who finds the Met’s flashy sets and costumes distracting, have I got a show for you!
Monkey business
East is West and West is East—the border ever less easy to fix.
Forever plaid
Starting right this minute, Lucia di Lammermoor starring Diana Damrau and Joseph Calleja, webcast by Sonostream!
Wednesday with Mary
La Cieca apologizes for her tardiness in saluting dear Mary this week, but she thinks you will agree it’s worth the wait.
Monkey do
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.
Peter Gelb is a fucking bargain
So guess who makes more money than Peter Gelb and works less, sometimes a lot less? Answer: a lot of people.
Les vêpres de Westchester
The big news from Bel Canto at Caramoor’s presentation of Les Vêpres Siciliennes last Saturday is far from unexpected.
It’s the humidity
Stay cool and comment on off-topic and general interest subjects, cher public.
Nacht und Träume
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.
Canard dynasty
“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!”
Spasimi d’amore
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.
Pardon the expression, but this is a steal
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.
Love in bloom
Everything about Aleksandra Kurzak’s new disc
is a variation on the term “fioritura.”
Lost and found
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.
One for the vault
Of all of Verdi’s operas. Aida is the one I find least interesting dramatically.
La vita e Club Inferno
What, you might ask, could a middle-of-the-road middlebrow stage director add to this monumental chef-d’oeuvre?
Hysterical blindness
Before we Yanks all go our merry ways for the July 4 holiday, here’s a quick reminder of this summer’s must-see.
17 Across: Flamboyant Romanian countertenor (5 letters)
“Gheorghiu has admitted a romance with Cézar, a flamboyant Romanian counter-tenor…”
Mardi gras
More virtual opera for those poor souls starved of the real thing: Rossini’s Ermione starring Anna Caterina Antonacci!
Run of the “Miller”
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.
While you waste these precious hours
It has come to La Cieca’s attention that the New York Opera Calendar is sadly devoid of content until Saturday of this week.
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).