Separated in alt
“That high E-natural must be up there somewhere,” these two ladies seem to be saying in unison: Voice of the Century Joan Sutherland and Voice of the Xtabay Yma Sumac.
Questo e Quello
Intermission feature, week of June 19
For you, cher public (pictured), your weekly off-topic general discussion thread.
Off the beaten track
If a new release of Verdi songs from Telos masquerades as a vanity project by Diana Damrau, the packaging takes the blame. Despite a starring place on the slip cover and top billing, Damrau sings less than a third of the tracks. It’s a pity, because she clearly found something of interest in the works […]
Casting: pearls before swine
Your season planning for Opera Orchestra of New York, cher public, looks a lot more interesting than what the company’s own artistic adminstration is likely to come up with. Thus far, La Cieca has heard one date for certain: that Eve Queler default choice Rienzi, this time with Elisabete Matos—presumably in the not very interesting […]
Nobody will get hurt
La Cieca congratulates the marketing department of the heretofore flailing New York City Opera, who seem finally to have hit upon a strategy that will get a response from the company’s understandably confused subscribers. The latest appeal, after the jump.
Happy Tosca Day!
Today is the 211th anniversary of the day the events in Puccini’s Tosca took place, June 17, 1800. (This detail is not mentioned in the libretto, but it is specified in the stage directions for Victorien Sardou’s play La Tosca: “La scène à Rome, le 17 juin 1800.” To celebrate this anniversary of this most […]
The shop around the corner
La Cieca’s lovely and talented colleague Olivia Giovetti takes on the Met’s gift shop in the latest installment of her WQX-Aria blog. La Cieca herself is of at the very least two minds about the changes to the gift shop, but she’ll invite you, the cher public, to chew on this issue before starts gnawing […]
Blow’s job
Despite baby-steps over the years, America’s musical scene, especially opera, remains decidedly un-HIP. (HIP: “historically-informed performance,” also called “period performance.”) While European opera houses turn increasingly to “original instrument” orchestras and specialist singers for seventeenth and eighteenth century works, this rarely occurs in the US.
It’s not where you start
The Metropolitan Opera expects to achieve a balanced budget in 2011, the first for the company since 2004. In other good news, contributions and grants were up about 21% between 2009 and 2010; program service revenue rose about 6% in the same period. Maestro James Levine took a 5% pay cut, sending his 2010 compensation […]
Intermission Feature
You asked for it, cher public, and La Cieca is happy to olige: a post to anchor the week’s off-topic and general converation threads.
“Why City Opera May Bite the Dust”
Briefly, according to Zachary Woolfe: “No one came.” More elaboration, plus speculation on “What That Means,” in the New York Observer. And for those of you with a taste for hash, the subject is revisited as well in the New York Times.
The mane event
“Je les tiens dans les mains, je les tiens dans la bouche… Je les tiens dans le bras, je les mets autour de mon cou… Je n’ouvrirai plus les mains cette nuit!”
Moving targets
In what may qualify as the most unholy alliance of Peter Gelb‘s tenure at the Met so far, since February the “Live in HD” performances from 2009 of both Turandot and Aida issued by Decca have been available from… Target. Only Target. They are scheduled for international release this July. Up until recently there has […]
Muhly marvelous
A few spoilsport commentators have complained that the clever marketing video for Nico Muhly‘s Two Boys at the English National Opera doesn’t accurately represent the somewhat dark subject matter of the new opera. La Cieca won’t take sides on this matter of vital import, but she will reveal to you, the cher public, that a […]
Kokusai himitsu keisatsu
You perhaps will not be completely flabbergasted that La Cieca has a spy following the Met’s Japan tour (pictured). The reports thus far (I mean, once the ragtag band of misfits finally landed in the Land of the Rising Sun) are not particularly scandalous, but, please give our operative time!
OONY thing goes
Our own Dawn Fatale (pictured) dreamt up the Konzept for the following challenge, to which La Cieca is sure the cher public will respond with their usual zeal and whimsy. In this game, it is up to you to program the 2011-12 season for Opera Orchestra of New York, based on a set of criteria […]
Last call
Our Own Batty Masetto gently prods, “The first cycle of the San Francisco Ring starts Tuesday, and time’s running out for those who haven’t checked in yet to share in the Parterre festivities. A dazzling array of Parterrians (pictured) have signed up already, so you won’t’ want to miss out on the meet-ups at the […]
Off message
Yes, we know, earthquakes, radiation, diva cancellations and all that. But it does still seem a bit strange to La Cieca that the “new” Met, where Peter Gelb so vocally trumpets the vital importance of new productions, should send the shabby 30-year-old John Dexter production of Don Carlo (above) on tour to Japan the very […]
Busting out all over
As Groucho Marx would say, this is certainly a way of beating the heat; it’s also a a way of creating it. Well, all right, it’s actually something Dick Cavett said that Groucho might say, but the point stands that at 2:00 PM EDT the Opéra Royal de Wallonie production of Salomé will be webcast […]
Shelf destruction
A member of the cher public has an interesting offer: “I have about 40 years’ worth of the British magazine Opera, most of them bound, which I would love to get rid of (no charge.) No library here is interested, but I thought some opera fanatic might want them. He or she would have to […]
June, moon
Last year, La Cieca dedicated a blog post to a production of Salomé scheduled to take place in the Palais Opéra in Liège, with two surprising late career debuts by June Anderson as Salomé and Kammersängerin Mara Zampieri as Hérodiade. Now, a year later, I could not resist La Cieca’s request for a review, especially […]
It’s complicated
The ever-alert PR people at the English National Opera (why can’t we have a company like this?) have assembled a “what if?” video to promote Nico Muhly‘s impending Two Boys, and thrown in an admirably scruffy “reality” actor to boot.
Pur tanto lusso
UPDATE: David Alden‘s manager Angela Maria Blasi confirms that he resides in London and has no home in Beverly Hills. What a pity: how La Cieca imagines David striding to the very lip of that brutalist fireplace and holding forth on the halcyon days of the ENO Mazeppa!
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).