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Chatter away, cher public, for here is your foyer for off-topic and general interest discussion during the week of August 5.
With the country mired in a recession and the Met carrying a heavy load of debt, what better publicity can there be than a sycophantic profile in the Wall Street Journal featuring Peter Gelb snarfing up an $800 bottle of “explosively rich” wine?
Attention K-Mart shoppers!
In what surely counts as the most startling sleeper story of the week in opera, soprano Patricia Racette has been canonized a saint in the Russian Orthodox Church.
For whatever reason (Lack of James Levine? Incompetence of Robert LePage? The economy? Wagner overload?), next season’s Ring cycle at the Met doesn’t seem to be selling.
Soprano, television personality and fundraiser Marguerite Piazza died yesterday.
The Robert Lepage production of the Ring cycle will be shown complete (including the now de rigueur fifth part of the pentalogy, Wagner’s Dream) September 11-14 on PBS
“I have learned by the perfectest report they have more in them than mortal knowledge.”
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Poetic license
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.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Frau Miina-Liisa will es werde Nacht
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.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Lux aeterna luceat eis
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.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Kathryn the great
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.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Count your blessings
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.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
One man’s Junker
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.
Verdi’s only successful comic opera, Falstaff, is notably hard to produce.
Puccini’s evening of one-act operas Il Trittico seems to be riding a wave of popularity over the last few years, with a new production at the Met and several high-profile productions in America and Europe.
Sometimes an obscure opera is revived, and everyone hails a lost masterpiece.
Which Met diva will sing two numbers “down a minor second” in her performances during the 2012-13 season?
You may recall a couple of weeks ago La Cieca spoke to Giuseppe Filianoti about the “lost” aria from Cilea’s L’arlesiana he had reconstructed to include in a concert performance of the opera.
As Leon Botstein has never said, “I digress.” La Cieca invites you too, cher public, to digress here in your weekly intermission feature.
Apparently, we learn very little in life; the follies we pursue with haste in youth are answered by the follies we commit in age with great deliberation.
The chicken or the egg?
Talk of the Town
The Talk of the Town
Andrée Esposito and Alain Vanzo should have made it to the Met
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.
The Talk of the Town
Ebe Stignani and Anita Cerquetti should have made it to the Met
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.
The Talk of the Town
Sena Jurinac should have made it to the Met
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.
The Talk of the Town
Janet Baker should have made it to the Met
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.
The Talk of the Town
Dorothy Maynor should have made it to the Met
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.
The Talk of the Town
Leyla Gencer should have made it to the Met
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.
Alexandra Deshorties will perform the key role of Juliana Bordereau in the Dallas Opera’s 25th anniversary production of Dominick Argento’s The Aspern Papers.
Scoring the Fire and Music contest was tricky, cher public, as the selections were both quite brief and relatively obscure.
Zachary Woolfe (not pictured) makes his way to Bayreuth to try to unravel the Evgeny Nikitin mystery.
The diva must be a Diva in Adriana Lecouvreur. Fact.
The opening performance of the already-notorious 2012 Bayreuth Festival, Der Fliegende Holländer, begins at noon today EDT and is relayed on a number of web-available radio stations.
In a startling move sure to dominate the news cycle, presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney has tapped bass-baritone Evgeny Nikitin as his running mate in the 2012 Presidential race.
The most wonderful thing about opera on video is the vicarious thrill of seeing performances of important works in the most glamorous foreign theaters in gala presentations with musicians of great renown for a piddling fraction of the cost.
Richard Wagner told Cosima he first got the idea of composing an opera about Tristan and Isolde while he was conducting Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi starring his muse, Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, in the trouser role of Romeo.
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