Supernatural Puccini
Thanks to Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin, here are a pair of short Puccini operas, Le villi and Suor Angelica.
Recent Stories
The ladies who loge
The Met season may (just) be over, but it’s always the right time for discussion of off-topic and general interest subjects.
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).
Erwartung at Emerson’s Bar and Grill
La Cieca wishes the divine Jessye Norman the very best of luck with her newly-released autobiography
Stand Up Straight and Sing, because—not to put too fine a point on it—it doesn’t look like the diva is going to make much of a go of her second career as a saloon singer.
The ladies in question
There is a truism that there are no small parts, only small singers. Last night’s Così fan tutte has made me consider another possible truism: there are no bad productions, only miscast productions.
Wedding beaux
David Daniels and Whitney Walters will be married on June 21st in Washington, DC by none other than Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
And Hanson is as Hanson did it, too!
Think of it as the anti-Puritani.
The revengening
Legendary Birgit Nilsson heads a spectacular cast in the second act of Götterdämmerung, our latest treasure from Mike Richter‘s trove of CD-ROMs.
Faites vos jeux, Messieurs!
The Met may be missing an angle calculated to appeal to the more adventurous attendee: opera as game of chance.
Putting on the Ritz
Leave it to that savviest of all divas, Jessye Norman, to work a subtle product placement into the very first chapter of her newly-released autobiography, Stand Up Straight and Sing.
War zone
Alan Gordon, embedded journalist, reports from inside the first AGMA/Met negotiation session.
“This is the point of no return!”
“My opera will be the grandest of all!”
Mary Garden is not tall; diets to keep slender
“Her manner is straightforward, even blunt at times, though she is a match for any diplomat.”
Divinités du stacks
The noble Alceste of Kirsten Flagstad is but one of many fascinating live recordings featured in Opera Depot’s May Sale.
Sweatin’ to the cabalettas
Here’s a playlist of bel canto favorite suitable for motivating even the most couch potatoesque of parterrians to put in a hard session of weight training.
Mr. B Natural
This week, Our Own Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin shares a modern classic: Wozzeck from the Opéra national de Paris, featuring Simon Keenlyside.
Bomp in the night
The first single by MU, “The Bomp Bomp Song,” is now available for download from CD Baby.
No you can’t
Identically-coiffed artistes Klaus Florian Vogt and Renée Fleming prove conclusively that American musical theater is not an international language.
A tsar is torn
In Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, all the Russian people starve and suffer, but none has suffering like the mental agonies of Tsar Boris.
Heartbreak fridge
Before there was Verdi’s Otello, Rossini’s Otello was considered the master operatic adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy.
The wrong box
La Cieca hopes any confusion will be cleared up soon enough that you, the cher public, may engage in your weekly round of conversation on general interest and off-topic subjects.
Rumors addressed
Peter Gelb sent out an email to the “Public Bulletin Board” earlier today, noting that “inaccurate rumors [are] flying around” and attempting to clarify the Met’s position on upcoming union negotiations.
Haydn in plain sight
The operas of Franz Josef Haydn are seldom presented in the great opera houses of the world, but then, they weren’t composed for the great opera houses of his own world.
Norn yesterday
The final day of the Buenos Aires Ring dawns in our latest sampling from the Mike Richter’s trove of CD-ROMs.