Flouncing
Hoist up your petticoats and get ready for a lively discussion of off-topic and general interest subjects, cher public.
Recent Stories
Whispers and cries
We were not at Carnegie Hall to hear superb opera singers bestow their vocalism upon Alban Berg’s Wozzeck; we are there to hear the Wiener Staatsoper’s house band work their magic upon an intricate, spooky, devastating score.
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).
Lobbyist
“Who makes these huge sandwiches? Godzilla? You need claws to unwrap the cellophane.”
Eye openers
“Kim Kardashian Reportedly Ditches Date at Vienna Opera Ball After Disturbing Blackface Incident”
Farinelli from heaven
My impossible wish would be to hear one of the great castrati who dominated opera for most of the 18th century.
Arms and the Menotti
He wrote an opera ostensibly about the horrors of dehumanization in which the empty characters exist only to be manipulated for his ulterior motives.
“The all-male cast… is excellent from top to bottom.”
Yes. Yes, that is what the review of Los Angeles Opera’s Billy Budd actually said.
Writers’ block
The last place you’d expect to find opera at all, let alone good, exciting opera, is in still-scrappy Bushwick, Brooklyn.
Mary’s third law of motion
“I have never driven a car because it always seemed to me a tax on one’s nervous system, and my only time for driving was when I was trying to store, rather than expend, energy.”
A sense of occasion
On February 29, 1812 (thanks to Pope Gregory’s calendrical reforms), Gioachino Rossini celebrated his fourth birthday.
The long and winding rodent
Since Jonas Kaufmann is so in the news right now, Our Own Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin has selected as this week’s listening treat the tenor’s debut performance at the Bayreuth Festival, a July 25, 2010 performance of Lohengrin.
Limited visibility
La Cieca hopes you, the cher public, will see your way clear to comment on this week’s off-topic and general interest subjects.
Squillo talk
Tenor Michael Fabiano has been named the recipient of the ninth annual Beverly Sills Artist Award for young singers at the Metropolitan Opera.
Getting our canards in a row
“Masterpieces are not there to subvert; they are there to explore.”
Just a cold and lonely lovely work of art
“Joined by the Collegiate Chorale Singers, Leon Botstein and the ASO perform perhaps the most popular German opera ever to have sunk into obscurity!”
Two out of three falls
Veteran diva Maria Guleghina “long married to the baritone Mark Guleghin, has found new happiness with Russia’s Olympic state coach of Greco-Roman wrestling…”
Come aboard, we’re expecting you
“The Metropolitan Opera Guild invites you to join Deborah Voigt on a musical journey to the islands and shores of Croatia and Montenegro.”
Take your Adderall, Wozzeck
“I think a lot of his hallucinations can be compared to ultra-sensitivities and hallucinations of extremely gifted people,” Mr. Hampson said.
Good fencing makes good neighbors
Tonight, Opera Company of Brooklyn celebrates Black Awareness Month with a special presentation featuring the work of Afro-French composer and conductor, Joseph de Boulogne, the Chevalier de Saint-George.
Miss Right
A particularly delectable treat from the Mike Richter trove: Wolfgang Sawallisch conducts a 1985 performance of Arabella at the Bayerische Staatsoper, featuring Lucia Popp and Wolfgang Brendel.
City of dreams
With issue #42a, “City of Dreams,” parterre box the queer opera zine returns at least temporarily to a rational numbering system.
In solitaria stanza
La Cieca alerts the cher public to be on the lookout for discounts and downright giveaways for the upcoming Vittorio Grigolo recital at the Met.
