Questo e Quello
Our Own Betsy Ann Bobolink has returned from Capistrano or wherever it is she winters to bring us our first selection of chat subjects for the long, sultry summer season.
On Nerva Nelli’s suggestion, La Cieca visited Lyric Opera of Chicago’s website, and it’ dire, my friends, dire.
Overture! Light the lights! And what heights you hit indeed, cher public, in La Cieca’s “Gold Standard” competition.
Andrea Andermann, the producer who brought you Tosca in the Settings and at the Times of Tosca, Traviata in Paris, and Rigoletto in Mantova, is preparing for a telecast of La Cenerentola.
“Katarina Dalayman will sing the role of Brünnhilde in this evening’s performance of Wagner’s Siegfried, replacing Deborah Voigt, who is ill….”
“The bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni, playing Leporello in the Met’s recent Don Giovanni, asked for vegetable sausage…”
Here’s a change of pace for you parterre chatters as the Met season winds down.
Certain opera productions become the stuff of legend as much for the circumstances surrounding the performance as for the musical results.
ust when you thought it was impossible to adore Yannick Nézet-Séguin any more than you already did…
Can a day pass without the New York Times‘ 24/7 coverage of the Met’s Ring getting on yet another of La Cieca’s nerves?
This Billy Budd would have worked better with a stronger set of singers.
Kate Royal withdrew as Mozart’s Contessa the other night (May 3) in Munich and we were forced to accept as substitute—gosh!—Anja Harteros
Do take a break from Wagner long enough to enjoy this week’s intermission feature, cher public.
When Quanto Painy Fakor said “Hamlet,” ianw2 replied, “You know what, you may be right.”
La Cieca (pictured, right) invites you to peruse what’s making headlines today.
At first glance, Ivor Bolton, Chief Conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, would seem an odd choice to lead Jenufa, Janacek’s grim tale of infanticide and oppressive village morality.
La Cieca (not pictured) has just accessed a new feature in YouTube that imported a dozen or so “classic” parterre video clips from Google Video into the familiar YouTube interface.
“Stuart Skelton will sing the role of Siegmund in Wagner’s Die Walküre on Monday, May 7, replacing Jonas Kaufmann who is ill.”
Here’s something you can hardly call news, because it’s an old story everyone expected to happen anyway.
Daniel Wakin reports that “WQXR pulled a blog posting critical of the Metropolitan Opera’s new Ring cycle last month after the Met’s general manager, Peter Gelb, personally complained to the radio station’s top executive…”
Wait, don’t guess until you’ve read what’s after the jump.
Rusalka and her sisters are huddled in the flooded basement.
Janácek’s Makropulos Case has only chalked up thirteen performances in three previous runs at the Met and will have just five more this season. Try to catch at least one.
To kick off this week’s intermission feature, cher public, La Cieca invites you to imagine who said what to whom to make two legendary ladies laugh so lustily?
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
