Hoop dreams
This Clemenza di Tito today is something of a wild card: an offbeat cast, the relative newbie opera director Jan Bosse and the exciting conductor Kirill Petrenko. If you’re intrigued, here’s the webcast starting at 1:00 pm.
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Vieni a mirar la cerula
More Verdi from the Mike Richter collection, this time from CD-ROM SFO-02, a performance of Simon Boccanegra featuring Ingvar Wixell and Kiri Te Kanawa.
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).
Brass ring
Marek Janowski’s survey of Wagner operas on PentaTone so convincingly captures the pulse and dramatic flow of many of the works that the music-making at times sounds almost effortless.
By Adriel
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Metropolitan Opera 2014-2015
Here you are, cher public, details of the Met’s (to be perfectly frank) not particularly spectacular mid-decade season.
It’s today!
La Cieca’s spy informs her that the Met will announce its 2014-2015 “Wednesday evening.” Watch parterre.com starting at 4:00 pm tomorrow for up-to-the-minute coverage.
Recklessly passionate
Before you ask, cher public, there is no Issue #41 of parterre box, the queer opera zine, or, rather, this issue, #42 is the 41st.
My knapsack on my back!
Cher public, I give a photograph of Jonas Kaufmann in a hoodie with a teeny birdie on his shoulder.
There’s no business like Mary business
“We Americans are not so critical of art as we are of showmanship.”
Slavas of New York
Even when the opera performed is a masterpiece, a truly superb opera performance is exceedingly rare.
Billy’s club
When Winston Churchill was First Sea Lord, the story goes, an indignant admiral accused him of violating British naval tradition, to which Churchill replied that the only traditions of the British Navy were rum, sodomy and the lash.
Je suis heureuse ici
This week, Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin has been unusually generous, sharing a performance of Pelléas et Mélisande featuring the dream pairing of Simon Keenlyside and Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.
Dwarf star
Verdi’s Macbeth poses a challenge to any company with the audacity to mount it.
New faces
Mr. Ian Rosenblatt is a London solicitor and patron of charitable causes in Britain primarily focused on classical music.
Play ball
An opera house is good for other things besides opera performances, cher public, such as (for example) discussion of off-topic and general interest subjects.
“Oh how I sympathize with King Canute!”
Norman Lebrecht, who is now actively trying (and failing) to destroy classical music—and why not: look how cruelly the industry has treated him!—has published a “review” from a “critic” who walked out of a three-act opera after the first act.
Brokeback chattin’
The webcast of Charles Wuorinen‘s Brokeback Mountain starting this afternoon at 2:00 PM is also the occasion for a chat over at La Casa della Cieca.
Polovtsian Chat Number 1
Starring at 6:55 this evening, cher public, the offical parterre chat on the Met’s broadcast of Prince Igor begins at La Casa della Cieca.
Everything’s coming up Londonderry
“Songs and arias by Wagner, Delibes, Cantaloube and a show stopping rendition of Danny Boy.”
Food of the gods
Treat yourself to the beauty and pageantry that is grand opera at the Metropolitan Opera.
Talor dal mio forziere
A summer performance of a wintry treat is this week’s bonbon from the Mike Richter collection, this time from his Opera from Munich CD-ROM, AE204.
On with the motley
In Issue #40 of parterre box, the queer opera zine, Our Own JJ nabs lengthy interviews with critic John Ardoin and tenor Richard Leech.
No one will be seated during the controversial “Rolling on Molly” sequence
First video snippets of the new Prince Igor are now live on the Met’s website.
Jersey girl
One has “made it” when one is gently lampooned by that edgiest of all late-night funnymen, Jay Leno.