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Before he was famous, tenor Juan Diego Flórez was already puppylicious. Here at at age 16 he sings a pop song on a 1989 televised music festival. (La Cieca can’t quite make up her mind if he reminds her more of Duckie in Pretty in Pink or Slater from Saved by the Bell.)
Of course you’ve all heard of the Afro, the Jewfro and the Gayfro. So allow La Cieca to introduce you to the latest variant of this curly coiffure: the Castratfro, as modeled by countertenor Philippe Jaroussky in the opera Agrippina. In the interest of fairness, La Cieca should point out that the big hair was…
Sempiternal Montserrat Caballe, erstwhile Verdian, bel canto specialist, Straussian, lyric soprano, coloratura soprano, dramatic soprano and pop singer, reinvents herself once more as character comedienne. Presenting La Superba as La Duchesse de Krakenthorpe in La Fille du regiment.
Anna Moffo in a non-operatic facet of her career, as leading lady in the Italian film Una storia d’amore (released in the United States as Love Me, Baby, Love Me!) In this melodrama, La Moffo seems to be playing the “Lana Turner” role, a sexy matron involved with a good-for-nothing pretty boy gigolo.
Opening tonight at Manhattan’s Film Forum: U-Carmen e-Khayelitsha, a 2005 film adaptation of Bizet’s Carmen updated to the present and transplanted to an industrial community near Cape Town, South Africa. The score, somewhat abridged but otherwise not altered, is sung in the Xhosa language. The NYT’s reviewer isn’t completely bowled over by the film, but…
… though not the one from last weekend!
Our editor JJ‘s busy week included a review of the Met’s Aegyptische Helena in Gay City News, and that panel La Cieca has been yammering about all week. As his presentation on the topic “Opera and Technology,” JJ introduced this little documentary about your own La Cieca.
La Cieca has just been informed that soprano Mary Dunleavy will participate in tonight’s panel discussion “Opera and Technology” at The Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America at Columbia University. No word on whether La Dunleavy replaces or supplements the previously announced Lucy Shelton. Our own JJ will be there of course, along with…
Tiziana Fabbricini? Well, in the words of Charlie Handelman: Mamma mia! What a “Mamma morta!”
Part of Anna Netrebko‘s star turn at the Vienna Opera Ball last month. Note at the end of the clip the lovely and talented Paris Hilton sulking in Richard Lugner‘s loge.
La Cieca has managed yet once more to scoop the everloving world. Here, for your enjoyment, prior to its unveiling in the Met’s Schwartz gallery: an exclusive sneak preview of the just-completed video portrait of Renee Fleming, directed by Robert Wilson.
The most startling news from tomorrow’s press conference at the Met (as released early to the New York Times) — in 2011, a new production of Bellini’s Norma, starring Renee Fleming and directed by Robert Wilson. The casting of Cecilia Bartoli as Adaligisa is La Cieca’s own whimsy, but, hey, stranger things have happened. (For…
Angela Gheorghiu sings “La vie en rose” at the Paris Garnier Gala conducted by Ion Marin, New Year’s Eve 2006.
The legendary French soprano celebrates her 80th birthday today.
Newly anointed gay icon Lisa Milne performs the “Jewel Song” from Faust. (For any of this to make sense, you need to have heard her interview on last night’s Sirius broadcast.)
The promotional trailer from Los Angeles Opera’s production of Mahagonny, starring the one-two punch of Audra MacDonald and Patti LuPone. (And Anthony Griffey makes three!)
Gian Carlo Menotti and Anja Silja, a match made in heaven.
Meet William Zauscher, a 21 year old student and web designer, who describes himself as “somewhat eccentric … artistically sensitive … a natural sense of musicality … creative.” La Cieca thinks William just might be her long lost son. (Thanks to AM for sending this link!)
Today is the shared birthday of Placido Domingo and Charlie Handelman. Unfortunately, there’s no YouTube video of these two together, so La Cieca will make do with the next best thing: a Domingo/Domingo duet:
Gala Gloria Swanson (sixtyish at the time) trills out a tune from a musical version of Sunset Blvd. that, alas, never made it off the drawing board.
The scene from Candide that was the bone of contention between Robert Carsen and Stéphane Lissner.
Legendary diva Nazimova in a scene from her 1921 film version of Camille.
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
