Recent Stories
Opera Orchestra of New York has announced their 2012-2013 season of only two performances.
“Alden Drops the Ballo: His Milquetoast Take on Verdi’s Classic Fizzles at the Met”
Due to wellness, it is with deep contentedness that Marina Poplavskaya will after all sing the role of Alice in Robert le Diable.
In art, less is more — at least most of the time.
Midway through his traversal of Wagner’s 10 mature operas for PentaTone, we’ve learned this about Marek Janowski:
Freud, who hails from London, spent five years as the general director of Houston Grand Opera and is no stranger to bolo ties and 10-gallon Stetsons.
Last week’s freak nor’easter set the tone for Thursday’s chilly new production of Un Ballo in Maschera at the Met.
Gather around, cher public (pictured), to discuss off-topic and general interest subjects in this weeks’ Intermission Feature.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Poetic license
Parterre Box shines a light on Liparit Avetisyan, who made his Met debut as Alfredo earlier this spring.
Parterre Box shines a light on Liparit Avetisyan, who made his Met debut as Alfredo earlier this spring.
Frau Miina-Liisa will es werde Nacht
Parterre Box features soprano Miina-Liisa Värelä, making her title role debut in Die Walküre in Munich next week, in a performance of Tristan und Isolde from 2021.
Parterre Box features soprano Miina-Liisa Värelä, making her title role debut in Die Walküre in Munich next week, in a performance of Tristan und Isolde from 2021.
Lux aeterna luceat eis
Grand Tier Grab Bag this week honors the late Limmie Pulliam with a bit of his Verdi Requiem.
Grand Tier Grab Bag this week honors the late Limmie Pulliam with a bit of his Verdi Requiem.
Kathryn the great
Parterre Box previews Kathryn Lewek‘s upcoming Salome with clips of her as another unhinged lady of antiquity.
Parterre Box previews Kathryn Lewek‘s upcoming Salome with clips of her as another unhinged lady of antiquity.
Count your blessings
Fast-rising Verdi baritone Ariunbaatar Ganbataar is the subject of this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag.
Fast-rising Verdi baritone Ariunbaatar Ganbataar is the subject of this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag.
One man’s Junker
Handel’s Deidamia — and one of its current champions, soprano Sophie Junker — are the subject of this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag.
Handel’s Deidamia — and one of its current champions, soprano Sophie Junker — are the subject of this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag.
Remember, remember, the first of November, the Occupy regie and quiz!
My figures show it’s still too early to call Ohio, but other races are more decisive.
Which singing couple is about to get involved in a messy scandal of the sort they usually experience only when performing together on the opera stage?
The realization of the opera Un ballo in maschera by Verdi and the librettist Antonio Somma is almost as famous as the opera itself.
In spite of sounding like an indelicate football injury, I Lombardi alla prima crociata was only Giuseppe Verdi’s fourth opera.
La Cieca celebrates (if that is the word) the first snowfall of the season in New York in the traditional manner.
Now that the cold war thriller The Manchurian Candidate is on track to become an opera, La Cieca naturally will turn to you, the cher public, for casting advice for the upcoming opus.
Opera’s Scottish enfant terrible David McVicar has applied his considerable skills in this 2011 Glyndebourne production of Die Meistersinger, the result being a refreshing new take on a familiar warhorse.
Talk of the Town
Andrée Esposito and Alain Vanzo should have made it to the Met
This Mireille duet unites Andrée Esposito and Alain Vanzo and shows the timbral and stylistic qualities that made them exemplary.
This Mireille duet unites Andrée Esposito and Alain Vanzo and shows the timbral and stylistic qualities that made them exemplary.
Ebe Stignani and Anita Cerquetti should have made it to the Met
Subtlety is for cowards, say the blazing Anita Cerquetti and the blaring Ebe Stignani.
Subtlety is for cowards, say the blazing Anita Cerquetti and the blaring Ebe Stignani.
Sena Jurinac should have made it to the Met
Sena Jurinac, a celebrated Mozart and Strauss singer here as the Composer, a signature role.
Sena Jurinac, a celebrated Mozart and Strauss singer here as the Composer, a signature role.
Janet Baker should have made it to the Met
The divine Dame Janet Baker never sang at the Metropolitan, sadly for American audiences.
The divine Dame Janet Baker never sang at the Metropolitan, sadly for American audiences.
Dorothy Maynor should have made it to the Met
We had to wait for Marian Anderson to break the color barrier at the Met and many great Black opera singers never had a chance there.
We had to wait for Marian Anderson to break the color barrier at the Met and many great Black opera singers never had a chance there.
Leyla Gencer should have made it to the Met
Leyla Gencer had a long European career but never sang at the Met.
Leyla Gencer had a long European career but never sang at the Met.
The battle of the sexes ended in an upset the other night in Le Nozze di Figaro.
Recently your doyenne engaged in an email-based interview with David Alden, director of the Met’s new production of Un ballo in maschera, opening on Thursday.
As we fall back to standard time, La Cieca invites to to while away all those hours of darkness with discussion of off-topic and general interest subjects.
We need a ray of Light in these dark times.
It’s confirmed!
Italo Montemezzi’s La Nave, premiered in 1918 and not performed anywhere since 1938, concerns itself with nautical power, male and female archetypes, love and hate conjoined, sex and death, the eastern and western halves of the Roman Empire — and the visionary future of Old Venice.
More bad news.
Then and now: the “Dio ti giocondi, o sposo” duet from Otello.
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