From Hell
“About the only good thing that can be said for New York City Opera’s Orpheus, which opened Saturday night, is that it made the rest of the company’s feeble season seem scintillating by comparison.”
Questo e Quello
Flamboyant intermission feature
It’s about time you arrived, cher public!
A little traveling music
Gustav Holst was always searching for deep theses from which to suspend his art.
Buzzworthy chat
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.
The respect opera is entitled to
On Nerva Nelli’s suggestion, La Cieca visited Lyric Opera of Chicago’s website, and it’ dire, my friends, dire.
Season well
Overture! Light the lights! And what heights you hit indeed, cher public, in La Cieca’s “Gold Standard” competition.
The girl next door
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.
Recycled
“Katarina Dalayman will sing the role of Brünnhilde in this evening’s performance of Wagner’s Siegfried, replacing Deborah Voigt, who is ill….”
Mouth feel
“The bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni, playing Leporello in the Met’s recent Don Giovanni, asked for vegetable sausage…”
Ceasefire
Here’s a change of pace for you parterre chatters as the Met season winds down.
Wholly Grail
Certain opera productions become the stuff of legend as much for the circumstances surrounding the performance as for the musical results.
Couldn’t you just eat him up?
ust when you thought it was impossible to adore Yannick Nézet-Séguin any more than you already did…
Ghost boaster
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?
Billy in the doldrums
This Billy Budd would have worked better with a stronger set of singers.
It might as well be Einspring
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
Honor your parterre masters, would you forfend disasters!
Do take a break from Wagner long enough to enjoy this week’s intermission feature, cher public.
The Regieness is all
When Quanto Painy Fakor said “Hamlet,” ianw2 replied, “You know what, you may be right.”
Fit to print
La Cieca (pictured, right) invites you to peruse what’s making headlines today.
Czech mate
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.
Re-entrance
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.
Look around: everywhere you turn is heartache
“Stuart Skelton will sing the role of Siegmund in Wagner’s Die Walküre on Monday, May 7, replacing Jonas Kaufmann who is ill.”
La tisi non le accorda che poche rappresentazioni
Here’s something you can hardly call news, because it’s an old story everyone expected to happen anyway.
Petered out
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…”
None so blind item
Wait, don’t guess until you’ve read what’s after the jump.
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).