Chat: Manon Lescaut Saturday matinee
Get ready, cher public, for the first Met Saturday matinee broadcast.
Recent Stories
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
You must investigate Baghdad
On this day in 1953 the Wright-Forrest-Borodin musical Kismet opened on Broadway.
Chanson d’amour
Much like Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, which launched the Met’s 2016-2017 season, Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de Loin is an opera about love and death.
Tag sale
It is a good rule of thumb that if you emerge from a massive grand opera like Aida feeling any less than overwhelmed, you have a right to be somewhat disappointed.
Jetez un voile noir sur la triste fiancée
On this day in 1840 Donizetti’s La Favorite premiered in Paris.
Chat: L’Amour de Loin
Whether near or far, cher public, you can enjoy the Met premiere of L’Amour de Loin in the company of other denizens of La Casa della Cieca.
Harmony of contrasts
Joyce DiDonato’s atest album, In War & Peace: Harmony through music, is more specific than it sounds.
Divine gladness
La Cieca thought it would be nice to revisit an Unnatural Acts of Opera podcast which included selections from the diva’s 1958 US recital tour.
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
Impressed seaman
On this day in 1951 Benjamin Britten‘s Billy Budd premiered in London.
Fürchterliches Weib
Happy 73rd birthday soprano Luana DeVol.
Powder her brain
So interesting an operatic topic as Barbara Cartland and her brain pills goes unset.
Test pattern
On this day in 1948 Verdi’s Otello was the first opera to be telecast from the Metropolitan Opera.
Solid gold
This week’s opera is Die Liebe der Danae.
The thought behind it
Born on this day in 1923 actress Gloria Grahame.
All about my mother
Operatic history can be cruel where multiple works with the same subject are concerned
Winning streak
Like our beloved Cubs, Chicago Lyric Opera is in the midst of a championship season.
Dream home
On this day in 1843 Michael Balfe’s The Bohemian Girl premiered in London.
To my cher public
La Cieca (pictured) begs your pardon for her unexplained absence from the site for the past several days.
Once, Moore, with feeling
When Sonja Frisell‘s Met production of Aïda was new and starred Oklahoma native Leona Mitchell, the similarly-intialled Latonia Moore was nine years old, singing in the choir of her pastor grandfather’s church.
The Sun Daughter
On this day in 1898 Pietro Mascagni’s Iris premiered in Rome.
