Questo e Quello
La Cieca has just heard that magnificent American mezzo-soprano and, later, soprano Shirley Verrett died earlier today. She was 79.
Which would-be hunk has taken to stripping off his shirt in mid-rehearsal? He eventually covers his tawny torso with a t-shirt, but meanwhile he basks like an infant in his Met colleagues’ gaze.
This just in from the Met press office: “William Shimell will sing the role of Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Così fan tutte for all performances this season, replacing Wolfgang Holzmair who is suffering from a sinus infection.” Mr. Holzmair’s sinus infection is apparently scheduled to linger through December 2.
“A few critics hosannaed ‘Thanks be to Great God Lenny for smooching us once more with his plump, moist genius,’ but the majority echoed Cecil B. DeMille’s tactful reaction to Norma Desmond’s bizarre comeback screenplay, “There are some good things in it…’” Our Own JJ reflects on Christopher Alden‘s direction of A Quiet Place at…
Attention gamins, cigarières, picadors, and other drôles de gens: the time approaches for our weekly evening live chat. And this time La Cieca remembered! The opera is Carmen, the start time is 8:00 pm, and le programme avec les détails follows the jump.
“Tyler Perry‘s… For Colored Girls does feel like a ghoulish joke, a dated horror show bordering on parody. It’s both operatic and tone deaf, with explosions of hysteria that include a drunken Macy Gray performing a back-alley abortion and the conversion of a poem spoken by [Ntozake] Shange‘s Lady in Purple into an actual opera…
Were the Swan of Catania as immortal as his melodies, he would be would be 209 years old today! Admirers of the “King of Cantilena” are invited to follow La Cieca’s example and post YouTube clips of favorite Bellini morceaux.
A painter’s nightmares of death start to become real. A man’s lover dies of a flesh-eating plague and inhabits the body of a new young fling. A TV news anchor finds herself on the other side of the headlines, drowning in the Holland Tunnel. If Edgar Allan Poe were alive today, these are the operas…
Although billed as “I Love Lucy the opera”, New York City Opera’s production of Richard Strauss’s conversation-piece Intermezzo offers far more emotional depth than the much-loved 1950s sitcom. Yet ironically, in key moments it lacks the necessary heart which Lucy had in spades.
I was trotting along and suddenly it started raining and snowing and you said it was hailing but hailing hits you on the head hard so it was really snowing and raining and I was in such a hurry to meet you but the traffic was acting exactly like the sky and suddenly I see…
With all due respect to Opinionated Neophyte‘s succinct but horrific suggestion, La Cieca has decided that the palm for post-publicist harebrainery should go to SF Guy‘s fully realized scenario of media synergy, with its characteristic whiff of “why not me” acting out. Congratulations, SF Guy!
For the first time in ages, a Regie production has managed to stump the panel! La Cieca will turn over all the cards and reveal to you that last week’s Regie quiz represented Haydn’s L’isola disabitata. You should have been able to figure that one out because the photographs depicted no desert island and lots…
Just in time for the holidays, Juan Diego Flórez releases the de rigueur Christmas album every internationally renowned opera star seems to make. Entitled Santo, this CD, like most others of its ilk, is pleasantly entertaining. However, Flórez eschews a straight Christmas album for one composed of a mix of religious standards, carols and eclectic…
La Cieca is delighted to note that old, old, old friend Brad Wilber (pictured) has relocated to his own niche of the internet. His Met Futures Page (the Necronomicon of opera queenery) may now be found, with the most recent and delicious updates, at bradwilber.com/metfuture.
“After a sketchy start to the season, the Met hit its stride on Friday with a revival of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale that’s as crisp as autumn in New York.” [New York Post] (Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera)
“Enrolled at the Manhattan School of Music, Mr. Jovanovich also began taking paying jobs around town. His first mention in The New York Times came in a 1996 review of the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players in The Gondoliers at Symphony Space. Anthony Tommasini noted Mr. Jovanovich’s bright voice and strapping physique…” [NYT]
Which critic—who has been eagerly spreading the news that NYCO’s A Quiet Place is a masterpiece—was observed snoring through most of the work’s first act?
Once again, La Cieca can do no better than to quote the ineffable BAB, who says, “The beauty of the Saturday afternoon Chats this summer has been that everyone picks what they want and then we compare notes with what’s happening elsewhere. Ordinarily I make no recommendations, but I have decided to do things differently…
René Pape has withdrawn from La Scala’s season-opening new production of Die Walküre, in what was to have been his role debut as Wotan. Vitalij Kowaljow will substitute. Pape is still scheduled to sing this role at the Berlin Staatsoper in April 2011. It is not clear at this point if Pape’s decision was based…
In layman’s terms: they have lost their fucking minds. Larger image here.
The original gay pirate is (sort of) 223 years old, since the Prague premiere of Mozart’s masterpiece took place on October 29, 1787.
Our Own JJ‘s heart has been blessed with the sound of Regie, and he’s blogged once more. This time it’s about The Little Foxes at New York Theatre Workshop. [Rough and Regie]
After enjoying the New York City Opera’s current production of A Quiet Place, why not treat yourself to one of the company’s signature cocktails before the long drive home? [Wall Street Journal]
“…incest, gay baiting, draft dodging and drunken driving… it’s hard not to giggle!” Our Own JJ reviews the NYCO’s premiere of A Quiet Place in the New York Post.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
×
Sign up for Parterre’s free newsletter.
Exclusive opera reviews, commentary, and top reads
delivered to your email weekly…ish.