Tu? Indietro! Fugly!

A loyal reader calls this little number "the worst gown I've ever seen."


La Cieca she agrees that Mme. Guleghina's fashion faux pas here just screams, "that was no lady, that was Lady Macbeth." On the other hand, your doyenne has seen some rather ghastly frocks in her time, and she's sure, cher public, that you have seen worse. If you have, send a jpg (preferably 350 pixels wide or larger) or a link to [email protected]. Let's dish!

Lord help the sister who comes between me and my man!

Not the newest observation, but perhaps relevant again at the moment. So, tell me, what do these two ladies have in common (besides the family resemblance, of course)? [UPDATE: I've traded out the original image of Joyce Castle for something more representative.]

Wheels within wheels

This is why drag was invented. The artistes are James Bondage and Bella ToDyeFor.

Sweet November

La Cieca's DVR hard drive will be overflowing by the end of this November since the indispensable Turner Classic Movies has scheduled a whole month of "guest programmers." Among the celebrities gracing the tube to introduce their favorite flicks will be some of particular interest to the parterre crowd. For example, this Thursday, November 8, playwright/actor Charles Busch will take a brief respite from his Die Mommie Die duties on the New York boards to present a quartet of women's pictures: I Could Go on Singing, The Hard Way, Escape and A Woman's Face.

Iconic Harvey Fierstein arrives on November 26 to introduce The Catered Affair (upon which his upcoming Broadway musical is based), as well as the camp classic The Women and two lesser-known pictures, The Boy with Green Hair and The Devil is a Sissy.

November 18 heralds the arrival of "one of the world’s most beloved and recognized figures in the worlds of opera and jazz," Renée Fleming. Films featured that day will include Red Dust, Captains Courageous, Test Pilot, Gone with the... oh, La Cieca begs your pardon, that was Victor Fleming.

In fact, "The Beautiful Cineaste" has selected for our enjoyment a quartet of musical extravaganzas: The Great Waltz, Song of Love, Interrupted Melody and Maytime.

Jessye is dressy, but Curtis is pertest

Curtis Rayam as Arnalta in L'incoronazione di Poppea, directed by René Jacobs.

Santuzza offers a prayer of thanks

"Over-accessorizing and poor taste in makeup is not an excommunicable offense," a specialist on Catholic canon law has explained.

The expert was speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle in the wake of a scandal involving San Francisco's Archbishop George Niederauer and the activist group the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. On October 7, Niedarauer delivered the Eucharist to "two men in heavy makeup and nuns' habits."

The Archbishop almost immediately issued a letter of apology to Catholics, but not soon enough to prevent Fox News screaming head Bill O'Reilly from grabbing the opportunity to sneer at San Francisco's "far-left secular progressives who despise the military, traditional values and religion."

Following up on the story, the Chronicle spoke to Rev. Jim Bretzke, professor of moral theology at University of San Francisco, a Jesuit Catholic university.

"The general sacramental principle is that you don't deny the sacrament to someone who requests it," Bretzke explained. "The second principle is that you cannot give communion to someone who has been excommunicated . . . .

"While I can see Bill O'Reilly and others might be offended, the sisters do not meet the criteria the church has for denying Communion. Over-accessorizing and poor taste in makeup is not an excommunicable offense."

Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be countertenors

Marked Down Woman

La Cieca's old, old, old friend and role model Charles Busch returns to the boards this month in the New York stage premiere of one of his greatest film triumphs, the eponymous matriarch of Die Mommie Die. Busch (who is of course the author as well) stars as Angela Arden, a legendary screen chanteuse bedeviled by adultery, incest, blackmail, murder and the servant problem.

The play is a send-up of those 1960s horror films (sorry, "psychological thrillers") like Dead Ringer and I Saw What You Did, with the added twist that the plot is "borrowed" from the Oresteia. In other words, this is the funniest version of Elektra you're ever likely to see.

Die Mommie Die opens at New World Stages for a limited run beginning October 10, and for an even more limited time you can purchase tickets for this not-to-be-missed theatrical event for only $35.00! To take advantage of this near-felonious discount, Click Here and enter code DMTMC35. You can also phone 212-239-6200 and mention code DMTMC35.

Where is style? Where is skill? Where is forethought?

Yes, another YouTube posting, but this one is something very special indeed. Legendary Zarah Leander is seen in a few moments from her 1975 triumph as Madame Armfelt in Das Lächeln einer Sommernacht (A Little Night Music) at the Theater an der Wien. La Leander also cavorts about a studio, lipsynching a medley of her hits with Les Boys. Once she lights up the cigarette, doesn't she look exactly like Bette Davis doing a musical version of The Little Foxes?

Trema, vil schiava

Although the cult TV hit Gilmore Girls has just ended its run after seven seasons on the CW, La Cieca thought you might enjoy a video featuring the "missing" Gilmore Girl (Miss Gail, that is.)

Sweet and low

Gender-bending diseuse Zarah Leander crosses over into opera to sing "Che farò senza Euridice" in this scene the 1938 film Heimat.


It may be noted that the sub-contralto Leander chooses a lower key for this aria than the written C major David Daniels will sing tomorrow night! For more about the iconic Zarah, see Ben Letzler's appreciation of the androgyne goddess.

Take that, Eurotrash!

The doyen of operatic stage direction has done it again! (Or, to be strictly accurate, he has done it for about the twentieth time, but who's counting?) Thrill to the brilliantly innovative new production of La traviata Franco Zeffirelli just unveiled at the Rome Opera!


Oh, if only we could have a production of Traviata just like this here in New York! Or, even better, if only we could have two productions just like this!

Sleeves importante

Even as she toys with the idea of yet another emergence from semi-retirement, Madame Vera Galupe-Borszkh is divesting herself of some of her most celebrated frocks. An Ebay auction continuing through March 27 offers such cult couture as the Manon "St. Sulpice" gown and an argentate mantle worn by Madame's hysterically hieratic Turandot. Also included are a pair of pink chiffon and marabou confections (sizes Large and Enormous) suitable for your next Dreamgirls theme party, and a Merry Widow ballgown originally worn by none other than Roberta Peters!

Semi-ubiquitous

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.

Garterdammerung

That Richard Wagner sure had star quality! Even now, 124 years after his death, the composer exerts a fascination that extends even to lively speculation about minutiae about his personal life. In a previously unpublished letter unearthed for the premiere issue of The Wagner Journal, Wagner discusses -- well, what do you think? The Grundthemae system? The influence of Greek tragedy on Gluck's "reform" operas? That old standby, The Jews? Actually, none of the above. The Meister burbles on giddily to a Milanese couturiere about a new frock "with a lace jabot and ribbons; close-fitting sleeves; the dress trimmed with puffed flounces - of the same satin material - no basque at the front (the dress must be very wide and have a train) but a rich bustle with a bow at the back, like the one at the front..." and so forth.

Wait, it gets better. Co-editor Barry Millington, who obviously has quite a bit of free time on his hands, speculates that the 1874 letter "adds weight to the theory that the composer exhibited the tendencies of a cross-dresser". Yes, that's right -- Millington is suggesting that Wagner was ordering the gown for himself, not for Frau Cosima. (The article from the Journal is not available online, but the main points are summarized in The Guardian.) The wealth of girly technical detail in Wagner's letters suggests that even if he didn't intend to swan about in drag, he might have finished in the top three on Project Runway:

... a black satin costume that may be made up in various ways, so that it can be worn out of doors, with or without the cazavoika,* and in the house, even as a negligee, producing a combination of several articles capable of complementing one another

* As La Cieca is sure it is utterly superfluous to explain, a "cazavoika" is a type of polonaise, or decorative overskirt drawn up by invisibly placed inner tapes producing a ruched festoon bustle effect.

Well, as delicious as all this speculation may be, La Cieca remains dubious about Wagner's putative transvestism. It appears that the linchpin of the argument here is that the obsessive diarist Cosima never bothered to note the delivery of the basqueless confection her husband ordered; in other words, he appropriated the finery for himself. Meh, says La Cieca; Wagner had lots of frilly things of his own and would hardly have had to resort to subterfuge. ("Oh, it's not for me, of course -- it just happens that my wife wears the same size I do...")

No, La Cieca prefers to think of the Wizard of Bayreuth as the Jeffrey Sebelia of his day, though thankfully without the neck tattoos.