Fleming-Bocelli ticket in 2008
The Washington National Opera has announced their 2008-2009 season will feature headliners Renée Fleming and Andrea Bocelli under the artistic direction of Plácido Domingo. According to an article by Our Own Anne Midgette in today's Washington Post, The Beautiful Voice will grace a new production of Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, an opera that has deep personal significance for the diva. Directing the opera will be "John Pascoe, a friend of Fleming's." Pascoe designed the leather jerkin Erwin Schrott sported in last season's Don Giovanni at WNO, so his credentials as an FOF are already well-established.Alas, Fleming and Bocelli will not actually share a performance at WNO, since his vocal contribution will be limited to a pair of performances of Rossini's "Petite Messe Solennelle."
Family values will be honored this season as Domingo's wife Marta will direct La traviata and Keri-Lynn Wilson (Mrs. Peter Gelb) will conduct Turandot.
Labels: domingo, fleming, gay gay gay gay gay, gelb, midgette, our own
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"... Netrebko is the larger presence. She has an earthiness and impishness — a daredeviltry — that may prevent her from ever attaining the kind of rarefied, disembodied sainthood that has been awarded, for example, to the American sopranos Renée Fleming and Dawn Upshaw but that also makes her more fun to watch." Charles McGrath writes a gazillion words or so about "
As La Cieca's clever public guessed 
"Ms. Fleming's soprano has gotten bigger and richer since her Dallas debut 15 years ago. 'I was replacing Carol Vaness in a lot of Mozart repertoire she couldn't sing anymore,' Ms. Fleming says of her early years."
La Cieca was just wondering about something yesterday on 
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,
The nice people at the 
And in other exclusive Decca recording artist/avant-garde legend related news, the Schwartz gallery at the Met is awaiting installation of a Robert Wilson "video portrait" of La Fleming. La Cieca will inform you when the Wilson film makes it on to YouTube.
The miraculous properties of the Gelb-era Met begin to rival those of the legendary aerosol product Shimmer. In the future, it seems, the Met will be both a floor wax and a dessert topping. For example, it has been rumored that a new production of Il trovatore would star (depending on who was telling the tale) Sondra Radvanovksy or Renee Fleming. Ha, ha, you're both right! If the information La Cieca hears is accurate (and when is it not?), Radvanovsky will sing the prima of the new production; then Fleming will star in the first major revival, perhaps with a telecast thrown in.
You may well be surprised to hear La Cieca say this, cher public, but she's bellowing a lusty "brava" to none other than 
Well, it had to happen sooner or later, and so it did happen, sometime between last night and tonight. La Cieca has decided she's taking Roberto Alagna's side in The Scandale.
Those of you cher public who frequent the left coast have probably seen the new Los Angeles Opera production of La traviata, the one that bumps the period of the action forward from the epoch of Alexandre Dumas fils to that of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Well, of course the svelte and lovely Elizabeth Futral looks charming in Jazz Age garb -- enough so that one would wish to see her in a revival of Harbison's The Great Gatsby -- that is, with different music. But anyway, just like everyone else, La Cieca thought that this new mise-en-scene by Marta Domingo was intended to become the LA Opera's "standard" Traviata. And, just like very nearly everyone your faithful scribe wondered just how well the modernistic lines of bugle-beaded cocktail dresses would drape over the curves of Renee Fleming, who is skedded to sing Violetta in LA this fall. Well, stop wondering, chickens, because La Cieca has just heard that la Fleming's contract for the production specifies that she will not do the "Art Deco" staging; rather, she insists on wearing the traditional crinoline. And she is arguing from a position of power, since Decca has also contracted to tape the fall performances for DVD release. Fortunately LA already has a conventional Marta-helmed Traviata in storage, awaiting only the arrival of la Fleming to be demothballed. The "Flapper Traviata?" Junked after only the one season, La Cieca hears.
8:30: Half an hour in, and finally some opera singing. Jesus Christ, three conductors for the first three numbers!
8:10 PM: Voigt's special material song is pretty damn awful. She sounds fine, but the song is crap.
Note that the broadcast is available on 
La Cieca has just learned the scheduled roster and repertoire for the 
Do any of you out there ever wonder exactly what it is an "Artistic Administrator" does -- I mean, besides collecting an annual salary and refusing to hear auditions? Well, finally La Cieca has uncovered at least part of the job description. An Artistic Administrator (for example, Diane Zola of the Houston Grand Opera) is a sort of lackey to the lawyers who run the opera company, assigned to such busywork as writing threatening letters to poor powerless bloggers like La Cieca:
According to 
"This week, I'm using Crème de la Mer for my skin, and products from Scott Barnes, the make-up artist who was responsible for J.Lo's glow. His trio of pink geisha-inspired blushers make my day. I have my hair cut by Vartan Vartali and coloured by Michael Stinchcomb, who's a fan and travels all round the world looking after me. And twice a year I go clothes-shopping. My wardrobe has become very streamlined. I buy from a handful of designers — Gianfranco Ferré, Issey Miyake and Yohji Yamamoto." Who else but Renaaay,
