Where’s the fire?
“Everyone complains about how there is no great singing in opera anymore, but last week’s performances suggest that’s not so. The singing today is mostly fine; it’s everything else that’s the problem.”
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Who needs what money can buy?
On this day in 1930 Ethel Merman made her Broadway debut in Girl Crazy.
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).
And we are back!
The commenting system has been mended, so the cher public (pictured) may now get back to doing what they do best.
Travels with my rant
It appears that La Cieca’s long-winded, likely drunken ravings late last Friday week attracted the most visitors last week, doubtless motivated by Schadenfreude.
Pretty little lyres
On this day in 54 AD Nero succeeded Claudius as Roman Emperor.
C’est une chanson d’amour qui somnole
What is surreal, symbolic, and generally mysterious in the dramatic arts can get a bad rap.
Lost soul
Lisette Oropesa sang “The Lost One”—the meaning of “traviata.”
Mice mice baby
This “new-to-Chicago” production is a sheer pleasure from beginning to end.
A touch of class
Among the goals for my Mixcloud page are more Mozart, and to pay tribute to more of our living legends.
He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure
On this day in 539 BC the army of Cyrus the Great of Persia took Babylon.
Inappropriately touching
“Operatic” generally refers to sung drama, but there is another meaning of that term: grandiose, outsize, hysterical.
Broadway bears
On this day in 1958 the musical Goldilocks opened at the Lunt Fontanne Theater, to run 161 performances.
“There seems to be no sign of intelligent life anywhere”
Venomous Fishwife Norman Lebrecht now doesn’t know the difference between Anton Chekhov and Konstantin Stanislavsky.
All my Edgardos
Well that’s a terrible place to start a review, and it’s not quite fair to SFO’s Lucia di Lammermoor, but…
Arpa d’or
Born on this day in 1813 composer Giuseppe Verdi.
Starry starry night
Although the season is less than three weeks old, Metropolitan Opera audiences may hear nothing else this season as beautiful as Peter Mattei’s “Song to the Evening Star.”
Beyond the blue horizon
Besides the heavens and a sweater in The Devil Wears Prada, it is the hue of Hibla Gerzmava’s soprano, in contrast to the red or rose or red-orange voices of most sopranos.
Foundling
Lianna Haroutounian will sing the role of Amelia Grimaldi in all performances of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra at the Met this season: April 1, 5, 9 matinee, 13, and 16.”
Her tiara is broken
“The curtain was descending rapidly on the last act of La Traviata, which was sung by the Metropolitan Opera company, when Miss Farrar stepped too far toward the footlights to bow to the audience.”
A voice within her
On this day in 1987, Waltraud Meier made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Fricka in a new production of Das Rheingold.
Lady in the bark
Three decades before Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Flórez dazzled the world with their La donna del lago roadshow, another deluxe team headed by Frederica von Stade and Marilyn Horne shone in Rossini’s neglected masterpiece.
“An earthquake of unprecedented intensity and duration”
On this day in 1897 Gustav Mahler became director of the Wiener Hofoper.
“What gets me…!”
What gets me, La Cieca snaps, is not so much that Levine bit off more than he could chew, because that’s old news.