Reflected glory
That fount of received wisdom Heather Mac Donald is at it again, calling out Our Own JJ for his desire to see a more varied and thoughtful dramatic reading of Rusalka at the Met.
Recent Stories
So sleepy
Oh, Christ, can you fucking believe a spokesperson for the Met chorus is still clanking on about the price of the poppy field in Prince Igor?
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).
The waiting game
This week’s gem from the Mike Richter collection is all the more precious for its rarity: a performance of Fauré’s Pénélope starring ravishing Régine Crespin.
Drive on
The battle of the management-labor emails continues with Alan Gordon demanding Peter Gelb fire his driver.
Project runway
Some ideas are so absurd that the only way to describe them is to simply use the liner notes.
What would Mary Garden do?
…Miss Garden never even turned her head, although the noise was directly behind her.”
Magnum forza
Our Own Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin has unearthed a hunk of prime Verdiana: a live 1972 Forza del Destino starring Leontyne Price and Franco Corelli.
Barn yesterday
The Cleveland Orchestra’s premiere performance of Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen proved to be both a critical and audience success.
Gelt trip
With the help of our friends at ArtHaus Musik, the Deutsche Oper Berlin have really been emptying out their archives and that’s certainly all for the good.
Into the weeds
Noted exemplar of Viennese frivolity Deborah Voigt will sing her first performances of The Merry Widow with Michigan Opera Theater in April 2015.
Kind of a drag
La Cieca hopes her cher public will not be at cross purposes when addressing this week’s off-topic and general interest subjects.
Ô après-midi d’amour
Starting in just half an hour, a live broadcast of Faust from De Nederlandse Opera starring Michael Fabiano and Irina Lungu.
“And one for Pavarotti!”
The apparently underemployed mezzo Alice Coote has been hitting the laptop again, this time delivering a rant that only makes sense if you read it aloud, slurring, “An’ another thing!” after each paragraph.
Coloraturafan and company
To celebrate reaching over 14,000 subscribers with over 18 million video views, I put together a compilation of my top 25 video postings from the past six years.
Breaking! And I don’t mean that in the newsroom “scoop” sense
There goes my very last nerve.
There is something I must do, there is something I must do
Your Own La Cieca has emerged from semi-retirement to present the 2014 Pubie Awards.
The princess diaries
By special request of Our Own DeCaffarrelli, and courtesy of Mike Richter, here’s a treat: a 1969 performance of La Cenerentola starring the delectable Teresa Berganza.
Sledgehammer
Alan Gordon replies to a letter from Peter Gelb we haven’t seen yet. La Cieca has to wonder if the Wendy White thing is really going to turn out to be an effective negotiating tactic.
KIngdom of the blind
Cher public, you know that Rupert Christiansen is not someone with whom your doyenne often agrees, but this time he’s got it right.
Tree hugger
Malena Ernman heads a starry cast in this 2011 performance of Serse from the Theater an der Wien, courtesy of Our Own Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin.
New faces of 2014
Once upon a time, a man and a woman met. He could sing, she could sing. They fell in love, got married, and became a power couple to rival Billary.
Midnight oil
La Cieca (pictured) is hard at work creating interesting new content for the upcoming week at parterre.com, but in the meantime she urges you to talk among yourselves about off-topic and general interest subjects.
Going to the mattresses
La Cieca reminds the cher public (pictured) of today’s live webcast of Der Rosenkavalier from Malmö Opera starting at 1:00 PM, accompanied by a chat session in La Casa della Cieca.