Our commenters do need prizes
Congratulations to the winners of the “Long Live Passion” Photoshop competition! The identities of the victors and a glimpe of their scathingly beautiful creations, after the jump.
Questo e Quello
Gelt gait tzu Gelb
The Metropolitan Opera reports an “astonishing” $182 million in donations for last fiscal year, almost triple what the company garnered in 2003. The bad news is that James Levine is still collecting seven figures annually for duties that at this point seem restricted to New England pratfalls. [New York Times]
Who is that masked man?
Peter Mattei will sing the opening night of the Met’s new Don Giovanni Thursday, replacing the injured Mariusz Kwiecien. Subbing for Mattei as Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia tomorrow and Friday nights will be Rodion Pogossov.
Juan down
Barihunk Mariusz Kwiecien injured his handsome back during today’s dress rehearsal of Don Giovanni at the Met and was taken to the hospital, tweets Dan Wakin. As La Cieca writes this, Kwiecien’s cover Dwayne Croft is at the Met rehearsing the opera’s first act swordfight.
Beyond the pale
“Hey the line forms, on the right dear / Now that Macheath’s back in town / You’d better lock your doors, and call the law / Because Macheath’s back in town.” So concludes Marc Blitzstein’s famous English translation of the song that opens Die Dreigroschenoper.
Savagery neglected
I’ll confess it. I am a bloodthirsty opera fan. I’m not above judging the quality of a work by the size of the body count at the finale. After sitting through Traviata or Boheme all evening I’m often disappointed when only one person dies in the last act. All the principals are dead at the […]
Intermission feature
Here it is, cher public, your arena for effete knife-throwing the week of October 9.
A Regie with a view
It takes an Ercole Farnese to recognize Verdi done the Regie way, and he was exactly right that the opera in last week’s quiz was Un ballo in maschera. He did miss the mark on the character depicted: the heavily made-up figure in the sunglasses and plumed hat was not Ulrica but Riccardo (Wookyung Kim). […]
I glam what I am
“Since Zeffirelli took his official leave from the Met in 2008, the company has experienced—some would say suffered—a backlash against glamour, or at least against those qualities that, thanks in part to Zeffirelli, are wrongly perceived as the synonyms of glamour: triviality and meretriciousness.” [Rough and Regie] (Photo: Ken Howard)
Besserer than nothing
Oh wow! It’s “Rob Besserer Week” on The Internet. The world’s favorite Silent Opera Star is featured in a wide variety of offerings.
Bass cleft
Mercedes and Sid Bass, the A-list society and philanthropy couple who in 2006 gave the Met $25 million dollars—the largest single unrestricted gift paid at one time from an individual in the company’s then 123-year history—announced their divorce yesterday, ending 23 years of marriage.
Do finish that sentence
Without reading the interview with Rupert Christiansen (or even with reading; it’s predictably dull), can you supply the answer to the tantalizing question “The mezzo-soprano Janet Baker: Why Karajan never called me again?” Your suggestions, the ruder the better, in the comments section, please.
They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity
They’re wrong. And what does La Cieca do when she sees a particularly memorable image? She defaces it, of course, and she naturally expects that you, the cher public, will do the same.
The look your heart can’t disguise
In what is without doubt the final chapter of their on-again, off-again romance, Angela Gheorghiu and Roberto Alagna are on again, she says.
Blow a kiss, take a bow!
The scribe is Zachary Woolfe and the powderkeg topic du jour is Anna Netrebko‘s mid-scene breaking of character.
Airborne
La Cieca’s spy in London reports: “So first Angela Gheorghiu cancelled this evening’s Traviata Faust at the ROH. On hearing the news, Vittorio Grigolo suddenly came down with a ‘chest infection’ —so the performance is going ahead with James Valenti and Malin Byström.”
Blonde ambition
“Her catfight with another princess over the emperor’s crown might have been an outtake from The Real Housewives of Babylon.” [New York Post] (Photo: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera)
I am a camera
I would never have imagined that the story of Anna Nicole Smith could be today’s entry in a long line of opera’s “fallen women”—pop culture’s reinvention of Violetta, Manon Lescaut, and Lulu. But that is indeed what composer Mark-Anthony Turnage and librettist Richard Thomas have created in Anna Nicole, commissioned by England’s Royal Opera House […]
Regie, bangles and beads
Smartly done, cher diseur de bons mots: Monsieur Hoffmann rightly guessed last week’s puzzler to be Don Giovanni. The production by Doris Dörrie is currently playing the Staatsoper Hamburg. Elsewhere, the Regie never stops, as you will see after the jump.
She said, he said
So Placido Domingo was all like, “Oh, that Anne Midgette is just a mean girl and she is SO JELLUS,” and then Anne was like, “Actually, nuh-uh, maestro, I’m so not.”
The most unkindest cut of all
Today Our Own Betsy inaugurates the F-K* rating system (*for “F-fete K-nives.”)
Dark lord
La Cieca had never really considered before the possibility that Peter Gelb was a Harry Potter villain, but this image from Channel 13’s Sunday Arts certainly does make one wonder.
Sun turns black as sackcloth; moon red as blood
“On Thursday, November 17 at 7:30 p.m. in Zankel Hall, the Carnegie Hall Notables—a membership and ticket program for music enthusiasts in their 20s and 30s—will host Love Letters, a performance of contemporary American playwright A. R. Gurney’s work. Celebrated soprano Renée Fleming and award-winning actor Alec Baldwin will perform the piece as directed by […]
Tales of the kitty
“Pets are not mentioned.” [Bloomberg Businessweek]
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).