Questo e Quello
Like the Israelites who cross the Red Sea in Moses in Egypt, New York City Opera has a long, hard road ahead of it.
“Her letter scene was glorious, and her final meeting with Onegin beguiling. Netrebko leaves nothing to be desired vocally and is a consummate artist as well.”
Congratulations to Isabel Leonard , not only the winner of the 2013 Richard Tucker award, but also the subject of a recent blind item on parterre box!
Ring a ding ding! There’s a new Duke in town, and he’s jolting the Met’s Rigoletto with enough electricity to light up the Las Vegas Strip.
The music is “Brünnhilde’s Immolation Scene” and it is up to you (and I do mean you) to identify the 25 singers involved.
La Cieca invites the cher public (pictured) to go into their regular Sunday routine of discussion and argument over matters general and off-topic.
Which music foundation’s choice of an award winner this year is perhaps neither brave nor new, but certainly a world of difference from the tenors they usually give it to?
Memo to Francois Girard: change your login information, because it looks like your PowerPoint has been hacked.
The legendary soprano celebrates her 80th birthday today.
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s only opera for Rome was written to an existing libretto by the great Pietro Metastasio, L’Olimpiade, which had already been set by Vivaldi the year previously.
Who would be so benighted as to send a unprepared substitute into the lion’s den of the Met?
Our Own JJ weighs in at some length about OONY’s performance of I Lombardi over at musicalamerica.com.
Always front and center with a vote of confidence, Peter Gelb told the New York Times, “Natalie is one of the great artists, but she also is somewhat fragile.”
Since its life-changing Atys first arrived in 1989 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (where the Lully returned one last time in 2011), Les Arts Florissants has presented works there which have challenged many perceptions about 17th and 18th century opera.
Your doyenne, while she never, never would think to record a performance she attends, is from time to time sent recordings of certain live events.
“Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine and Puccini’s Suor Angelica…. Cast Features Nuccia Focile, Rosalind Plowright, Maria Gavrilova in her Seattle Debut”
“Danielle de Niese will sing the role of Cleopatra in this evening’s performance of Handel’s Giulio Cesare, replacing Natalie Dessay, who is ill.”
La Cieca does what she can in her own little way to, well, light a single candle against ignorance, but sometimes she is surprised by her own strength.
Either tonight’s concert performance of I Lombardi by Opera Orchestra of New York was a “star is born” moment for Michael Fabiano, or else there is no such thing as a “star is born” moment any more.
Bollywood dance numbers, kung fu fighting, simulated nudity — and rock-solid musical values — added up to a sterling Giulio Cesare at at the Met.
“I’m analytical, not wild,” Ms. Garanca told an interviewer in 2009.
It’s that time of the week (again?) when the parterriat discuss off-topic, general interest and impressionistic subjects.
On the final night of her farewell engagement at the Café Carlyle, cabaret legend Elaine Stritch took a few questions from the audience.
It’s not a sure thing, only a “maybe,” but it’s the most exciting Regie news La Cieca has heard all season.
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
