Questo e Quello
What better way to stay warm (and to avoid falling branches) than to enjoy Our Own JJ in a rare symposium appearance? The bloviation transpires this afternoon, and details are after the jump.
That Issac Mizrahi production of A Little Night Music for Opera Theater of St. Louis just got even gay gay gay gay gayer with the announcement of legendary diva Siân Phillips in the role of Madame Armfeldt. Also appearing will be notable non-slouches Amy Irving as Desiree and Ron Raines as Fredrik. [OTSL]
I really haven’t paid much attention to “opera regie,” so I can’t give you a firm definition of it. A while ago, a pithy and biting piece called “How to Opera Germanly” made the internet rounds, and it serves as a handy guide for we who are un- or under-initiated. This production of Haydn’s Orlando…
Impresarios from Cornwall to Caithness are delighted to hear today that another traditionally Albion-adminstered opera company has begun the succession process with the search for a new heir-presumptive. Or, in other words, Glimmerglass General and Artistic Director Michael MacLeod is out the door at the end of the 2010 season, and now we just have…
“Anna Netrebko‘s gorgeous lyric soprano proved an ideal fit for the role of tubercular seamstress Mimi. Like a great wine, her voice is sweet but complex, vivid with overtones. She acted with a calm, fatalistic quality, even in the death scene, where many singers overdo the coughing. Here Netrebko suggested waning strength by gradually letting…
“It is easy to understand why Mr. Muti admires Mr. Abdrazakov, his young, imposing Attila.” [NYT]
“On her new album, Dark Hope, opera star Renee Fleming takes a ‘visit to a new, parallel universe.’ … Dark Hope finds ‘The People’s Diva’ covering songs by Muse, Arcade Fire, The Mars Volta, Death Cab For Cutie, Leonard Cohen, Band Of Horses, and more.”
“After 130 years, you’d think the Met has done everything at least once. But Tuesday was a night full of firsts…” Our own JJ, if by no means as thorough as Johnny Weird, has his own thoughts about the Met’s Attila. [New York Post]
The tutelary diva of parterre.com is 76 years young today.
First things first: how are the clothes? Well, there’s enough leather to fill The Eagle ten times over, and there’s definitely fodder for intermission conversation: an adorable tweedy, puffy coat for Uldino; the pimped-out spiky bike helmet with the L.E.D. lights for Attila; all the L.E.D. lights in fact, like the ones that outline Ezio’s…
La Cieca hears that Bartlett Sher has already signed a new three-opera deal with the Met. The director, who completes his first trifecta with next season’s Le Comte Ory, will reportedly return to the company in 2013-2014 for two productions, one of which will be that new Nico Muhly work, Two and a Half Men…
You’ve done it again, cher public: that is, you’ve set a new record here at parterre.com. The busy activity yesterday including the discussion of the Met’s 2010-2011 season led to the highest number of visits on a single day in parterre.com history: 5,857!
Hey, remember how New York City Opera threw this big gala last fall to salute the billionaire teabagger, Astroturfer and enemy of Net Neutrality David H. Koch? Now, La Cieca is sure that in the intervening months you have been asking yourself, “What could NYCO possibly do to top this ill-advised exaltation of someone who…
Tomorrow night’s performance of Attila promises to be a visual feast, especially for those of us whose visual aesthetic was crystallized in the 1960s era of gigantic hair, pearlized eyeshadow, liquid eyeliner and sharply tailored sportswear. And Violeta Urmana‘s look is pretty fierce too!
Above, the cutest press photo released today by the Met. (Juan Diego Flórez in the title role of Rossini’s “Le Comte Ory.” Photo: Micaela Rossato / Metropolitan Opera.) Following the jump: more preview images of the Met’s other six new productions of the 2010-2011 season.
Intern JJ here, ready to go with live coverage of the Met’s 2010-2011 press announcement, which will begin in about 30 minutes. See you there, cher public! Latest coverage begins after the jump.
La Cieca hears that Placido Domingo has withdrawn from Tamerlano at ROH due to ill health and is rumored to be in hospital. Kurt Streit will now sing all performances.
Per the Met press office, “Giovanni Meoni will make his Met debut singing the role of Ezio in the premiere of Verdi’s Attila, tomorrow evening, replacing Carlos Alvarez, who is ill.”
You can stop all your wondering about who will play Anna Nicole Smith in the eponymous oeuvre by Mark-Anthony Turnage (The Silver Tassie) and Richard Thomas (Jerry Springer: the Opera), scheduled for a premiere at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden in February 2011. It’s Eva-Maria Westbroek, seen here in the (ahem) Titelpartie of Lady Macbeth…
“The Met’s been cleaning house of its lavish Franco Zeffirelli productions, mothballing his Tosca and Carmen earlier this season. But his staging of Puccini’s La Boheme remains a keeper, packing a punch 28 years after its premiere.” Our Own JJ goes gaga for Anna in the New York Post.
This month Deutsche Grammophon will scrape the bottom of the barrel and present a new recording of Leoncavallo’s genre-bending “symphonic poem for tenor and orchestra” La Nuit de Mai, studded with stars Plácido Domingo and Lang Lang. Dark horse Alberto Veronesi conducts — indeed, the same Muti-maned steed who was recently announced to succeed Eve Queler…
Ordinarily La Cieca bestows the Wildean accolade upon a local cher pube. This time, though, she cannot resist praising one of the commentariat at Unpop!, Daniel Stephen Johnson‘s new project over at the New Haven Advocate.
The Catalan theatre company La Fura dels Baus, under the baton of Zubin Mehta, brought forth a new production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen in 2007 in Valencia. The brochure for the DVD release calls this “A Ring for the 21st Century” and tells us that stage director Carlus Padrissa has employed “…imagery for…
La Cieca has just heard from a generally reliable source that one of the principal artists has withdrawn from all performances of Attila at the Met. We’ve emailed the company’s press office for confirmation of the rumor.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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