Czech mate
At first glance, Ivor Bolton, Chief Conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, would seem an odd choice to lead Jenufa, Janacek’s grim tale of infanticide and oppressive village morality.
Recent Stories
Re-entrance
La Cieca (not pictured) has just accessed a new feature in YouTube that imported a dozen or so “classic” parterre video clips from Google Video into the familiar YouTube interface.
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).
Look around: everywhere you turn is heartache
“Stuart Skelton will sing the role of Siegmund in Wagner’s Die Walküre on Monday, May 7, replacing Jonas Kaufmann who is ill.”
La tisi non le accorda che poche rappresentazioni
Here’s something you can hardly call news, because it’s an old story everyone expected to happen anyway.
Petered out
Daniel Wakin reports that “WQXR pulled a blog posting critical of the Metropolitan Opera’s new Ring cycle last month after the Met’s general manager, Peter Gelb, personally complained to the radio station’s top executive…”
None so blind item
Wait, don’t guess until you’ve read what’s after the jump.
Under water
Rusalka and her sisters are huddled in the flooded basement.
Immortal beloved
Janácek’s Makropulos Case has only chalked up thirteen performances in three previous runs at the Met and will have just five more this season. Try to catch at least one.
When Divas Collide II: Mad Men Edition
To kick off this week’s intermission feature, cher public, La Cieca invites you to imagine who said what to whom to make two legendary ladies laugh so lustily?
Screen and screen again
The New York Times sends cub reporter (Get it? Cub reporter! Oh, La Cieca is killing herself with the puns!) Zachary Woolfe to the movie palaces of the heartland.
A shot in the dark
Which diva, oblivious to the open mikes of the theater PA system, recently fired off this immortal line at her impresario: “You run this place like the Gestapo!”
Don’t drop the Regie
Our most recent Regie quiz yielded lots of guesses from the cher public, many of them very clever indeed.
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth
“The Met’s new Ring is the most frustrating opera production I have ever had to grapple with.”
ENO is enough
The repertory for the upcoming season of the English National Opera (also known as “Peter Gelb‘s shopping list”) boasts the world premiere of a new opera by Philip Glass, The Perfect American, which imagines the last days of Walt Disney.
Hier bleibt Elektra
The Met has finally released the contents of the James Levine 40th Anniversary box sets separately for those of us who didn’t have $500 lying around.
L’Âge d’Or
A friend of the box just reminded La Cieca that tonight, April 22, 2012 is the 40th anniversary of the farewell gala honoring Sir Rudolf Bing.
Eye rolling
It turns out we were wrong all along, cher public: the Robert Lepage production of the Ring at the Met is in fact a triumph.
Demimonde
La Cieca has just had the news confirmed that Natalie Dessay canceled after Act 1 of La Traviata earlier this evening at the Met.
Intermission feature
Has the week really gone by so quickly?
Bringing up baby
La Cieca hears that Diana Damrau has withdrawn from the Royal Opera’s production of Robert le Diable (due to open December 6) because of pregnancy.
Comeback kid
After an absence of seven seasons, tenor Richard Leech will return to the stage of the Met on April 27 as Albert Gregor in The Makropulos Case.
Red all over
You’ve heard what it sounded like; now you can see Saturday afternoon’s HD of La traviata, thanks to YouTube.