Recent Stories
Not one but two scintillating pieces from zealous, zazzy Zachary Woolfe today: a takedown of The Enchanted Island in the New York Observer, and some musing on life after NYCO in the New York Times.
If the Arthaus Musik release of Le nozze di Figaro from La Scala feels like a slouchy revival pulled haphazardly from the video vault, the singers are certainly not at fault. Ildebrando D’Arcangelo and Diana Damrau, starring as Figaro and Susanna, are bankable stars who live up to the hype. At the podium, Gérard Korsten…
Yet another of the institutions of parterre, the Regie Quiz, seems to have slipped away from us, temporarily at least, with the most recent puzzler over a month ago. And yet, with all that time to ponder, not a single member of the cher public identified the work correctly! It was La Damnation de Faust,…
Artist manager, media mogul, impresario… and now, with no other new worlds to conquer, Peter Gelb has achieved the pinnacle career goal to which only the most outrageously successful showbiz superstars can aspire: unpaid blogger for Huffington Post.
The New Year’s Eve gala at the Met ushering out 2011 was the world premiere of the much-anticipated mash-up The Enchanted Island AKA “baroque opera for those who hate (or at least don’t know) baroque opera.
For this final evening of 2011, La Cieca invites you to a final chat. Starting at 6:30 PM, the cher public are invited to wade into The Enchanted Island, broadcast live from the Met.
“There comes a time in every woman’s life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne,” says La Cieca (pictured, left). As she prepares to bid 2011 adieu, your doyenne invites the cher public (artist’s conception, right) to join her in making a few resolutions for 2012.
At tonight’s Faust performance, two events of note: René Pape, upon his re-entrance after the Jewel Song, ad-libbed the spoken line “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” The performance, a broadcast, was the basso’s final one of this production.) After this moment of comedy, drama followed at the curtain calls.
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.
After today’s Met dress rehearsal of The Enchanted Island, La Cieca’s spy (pictured) reports: “You would think that if they had the entire Baroque canon to mine, they would’ve chosen music that wasn’t slow, dull, and long. In Peter Gelb‘s opening remarks, he called it ‘the Met’s Baroque Coming Out party,’ which makes me think this entire endeavor was…
The stunning New Broadway Cast Recording
of Sondheim’s Follies is currently on sale on Amazon for an astonishing $4.99.
Guess who gets the showstopping “11 o’clock” spot? Why, none other than The Booty of the Baroque herself!
Here’s your off-topic and general interest thread for the holiday week.
As suggested in Part I of this piece, to experience Glass’s Satyagraha as a purely aesthetic experience is unfortunately to succumb to a romantic ideology promoting detached reflection on art which is wholly inapplicable to such a politically-charged opera. The idea that Gandhi’s action-oriented philosophy would be packaged and sold for the sake of passive…
According to a statement issued this morning, Opera Boston is ceasing operations as of January 1. [Boston.com]
That Philip Glass’s opera about Gandhi’s nonviolent civil disobedience should be revived by the Metropolitan Opera in 2011—a year marked by nonviolent revolutions and uprisings around the globe—is timely, to say the least. The most recent production of his Satyagraha (1979) was first premiered by the Met in the spring of 2008 as America stood…
Our Own JJ gets into the traditional holiday mood, journalist style, by cobbling together a listicle of last-minute shopping options. [New York Post]
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.
Many American opera-lovers take the “Grand Tour”—a pilgrimage to Europe to attend opera at its great houses—Peter Grimes at the Royal Opera in London or Otello at La Scala in Milan, or perhaps for the more well-heeled a visit to the summer festivals of Glyndebourne, Salzburg or Aix-en-Provence.
“In an unlikely venue—a converted gymnasium off Avenue B—one of New York’s newest opera companies is keeping musical tradition alive.” [New York Post]
Here’s where the elite(?) will meet the week of December 18 for off-topic and general discussion.
UPDATE: A source at tonight’s Met Faust tells La Cieca that after Wendy White fell from a platform on her entrance into the garden scene, there was an intermission, then “…her cover [Theodora] Hanslowe went on from the ‘Eh quoi, toujours seule’ . . . . At second intermission now. Announcement just made that Wendy…
La Cieca has just heard that 800 tickets for the public dress rehearsal of the Met’s new Enchanted Island production will be distributed starting at noon tomorrow. The rehearsal will be Wednesday, December 28 at 10:30am, and naturally your doyenne encourages spies, agents, operatives, sleuths, snoops, spooks and spotters to attend this sneak preview and to…
Is this the new Mari Lyn?
At long last, Franco Zeffirelli opens up about his back-door route to the lap of luxury: “Ho dato il culo per fare carriera e mi è piaciuto.” [Attualisimo]
Capriccio skates along on a fine line between a fascinating idea-driven debate about the purpose of art in the wider world and a rather fussy narrow debate about text and music interesting only to those interested in opera as theatre.
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