Questo e Quello
Let not the warm days of spring tempt you too far away from this week’s discussion of off-topic and general interest subject, cher public!
A sharp-eyed spy at tonight’s performance of Die Walküre at the Met notes that, while there were no malfunctions of the Machine per se, there was an unexpected projection toward the middle of the third act.
It’s hard to think of a rare work by a great composer more tailor-made for a twenty-first century reexamination than Mozart’s Il Sogno di Scipione.
Some days you can feel like a hero just getting out of bed in the morning.
The story is short, but to the point: this soprano has been “sacked” from a major opera house’s gala Puccini revival.
Here’s a taste of what’s in store for the Met’s HD audience on Saturday
La Cieca wants to be among the first to congratulate soprano Ailyn Pérez, who is the winner of the 2012 Richard Tucker Award.
“I will be on #Broadway again!”
A woman unhappy with the Bolshoi Opera’s controversial staging of Ruslan and Ludmila was denied a one million ruble compensation bid by Moscow’s Tverskoi court on Monday.
Well, this looks pretty definitive.
Here’s a bit of good news for all you Traviata fans with tickets for tomorrow night’s Met performance or Saturday afternoon’s HD.
An understudy saved the show at the Met’s La Traviata Friday night, but no star was born.
Daniel Barenboim does not want to conduct Berg’s Lulu. Or so it seems.
La Cieca (in larger tiara) thinks it’s high time we all took a break from Regie watching and everything else…
There’s nothing like a good performance of Verdi’s Macbeth and here is proof positive because this dvd is (almost) nothing like a good performance.
Our own Ercole Farnese has alerted La Cieca to a breaking story in Il Secolo XIX: Dessì diserta Genova per amore.
“Since no opera company in the U.S. has quite got up the courage to present a Herheim production, this webcast offers us a chance to sample this director’s unique style of Regie.”
Says the Met’s press office: “Hei-Kyung Hong will sing the role of Violetta Valéry in Verdi’s La Traviata at tomorrow’s performance, replacing Natalie Dessay, who is ill.” (Photo: Marty Sohl)
…and songs from her 2010 indie rock album Dark Hope.
Nicholas Hytner’s much-travelled and well received 1985 production of George Frideric Handel’s 1738 opera Xerxes has been released on DVD
from Arthaus Musik, in a performance recorded live from the English National Opera in 1988.
Just in time for the beginning of the first cycle of the Robert Lepage Ring (pictured), Peter Gelb tries to convince Anthony Tommasini that everything is just fine, thank you…
La Cieca has just received a complete report from her spy at today’s open dress rehearsal of La traviata at the Met.
Certain contemporary opera directors have taken to portraying Wagner protagonists as visual artists to better illuminate the characters’ moral and aesthetic struggles.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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