With a little bit of Gluck
The best joke in Offenbach’s delicious Orphée aux Enfers is the opening premise: Orphée and Eurydice are miserably married, due to her utter boredom with his old-fashioned music.
Recent Stories
Requiem for a dream
Last night, La Cieca finally got around to watching that documentary about the rocky road to the new Ring at the Met, and she has a thought or two about this whole brouhaha.
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).
Mousecapades
Our Own JJ (not pictured) just came running into the parterre offices wild-eyed with excitement.
Énée day now
Tenor Bryan Hymel has been named the recipient of the eighth annual Beverly Sills Artist Award for young singers at the Metropolitan Opera.
Happy Birthday Magda Olivero
The fabled verista celebrates the 103rd anniversary of her birth today.
Faustian, but no bargain
“The spring season at the Met is as changeable as March weather in New York: crisp and brilliant for a day or two, and then suddenly as dismal as Thursday night’s Faust.”
Living loge
Time to walk around a bit and discuss this week’s off-topic and general interest subjects, cher public.
Our own JJ plans a comeback
Our Own JJ (not pictured) discussed “star quality” on WQXR’s Operavore program tomorrow afternoon at 12:30.
Risë Stevens, 1913-2013
The glamorous and beloved mezzo-soprano died yesterday. She was 99.
Scarred for life
“…the stage is crowded with grumbling members of the old guard who aren’t renewing subscriptions, disenchanted reviewers, vendors of vitriol on blogs like Parterre Box…”
Lamento della Neely
All these years La Cieca has complained that nobody would write an operatic version of Valley of the Dolls, and what do you know?
Common cause
The Brooklyn Academy of Music kicks off its 2013 Next Wave Festival launches with BAM/New York City Opera co-production of Anna Nicole.
Emperor of the perverse
Short as Roman emperor Eliogabalo’s reign was, the world sighed in relief when it was over.
The girl next door
On first hearing, Paul Dukas’ 1907 opera Ariane et Barbe-bleue (Ariane and Bluebeard) sounds like the love child of a three-way between Wagner, Strauss, and Debussy.
One from the vault
There has never been a successful vampire musical—so they say. But that’s just not true.
Bright young thing
Thursday’s Met performance of the Verdi tearjerker featured a major find: Diana Damrau, who, in her first outing as Violetta, mesmerized with her gleaming soprano and ferocious acting.
Alcoholics astonished
Christoph Willibald Gluck wrote some fifty operatic works, not counting revisions and translations, and in every form extant in the two cities, Paris and Vienna, in which he made his career.
The Roman stain
Gotham Chamber Opera stumbled so badly Friday night with Francesco Cavalli’s 1668 Eliogabalo at The Box, it was hard to know whether to feel sad or angry—or both.
Down Argentine way
It has always puzzled me—and I’m not the only one—that so few successful operas have been composed in Spanish.
The Piotr principle
A Dutch-speaking parterrian has graciously translated the interview with Piotr Beczala that’s been causing such a foofaraw lately.
Deliberate cruelty is unforgivable
André Previn‘s A Streetcar Named Desire, with the “People’s Diva” herself in the iconic role of the unstable Blanche DuBois.
Un soggetto dell’epoca
“With one of my favorite opera productions returning to the Met tonight, I’ve been considering lately what makes Willy Decker‘s Traviata so fine, so satisfying, and so worth a return visit.” [Musical America]
Happy Birthday Stefan Herheim
The Prince of Regie, who’ll direct a new Vêpres siciliennes for the Royal Opera this fall, is 43 years old today.