Recent Stories
Appearances to the contrary, La Cieca can’t be everywhere at once, so she’s relying on you, cher public, to share your impressions (written, not vocal) of the Rufus Wainwright/George Steel extravaganza last night at the World Financial Center. (Extra points for the use of the word “travertine.”)
A trailer for the experimental film The Violinist, promising “strange drama… sex… drugs… and classical music.” And, oh yes, with billing yet, Our Own George Steel.
By popular demand, the return of the Regie quiz. La Cieca will not ask you to identify the above photo because the identity of the opera is so obvious. Instead, use your reasoning powers on the photos after ths jump. As always, cher public, if you actually recognize the production, stay quiet while others guess!
While nursing her sunburn after yesterday’s New York Pride parade (were these things always five hours long?) La Cieca wandered about the web a bit until she found a copy of the text of the 1922 edition of Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics and at Home by her fellow doyenne Emily Post.
Danish composer Poul Ruders, having been deeply moved by Lars von Trier’s 2000 film Dancer in the Dark, used his third commission from the Royal Danish Theatre to create a 75-minute opera based on this tragic story of a mother’s sacrifice to save her son from hereditary blindness. The result is a small masterpiece, renamed…
The centennial observances of Gustav Mahler’s death have not turned up a surfeit of newly discovered performances, probably because his symphonies and song cycles have long been a calling card for serious artists and record labels. Though the industry archives may be picked clean, the estates of dead musicians are at least starting to kick…
For you, cher public (pictured), your weekly off-topic general discussion thread.
Sir Arthur Sullivan, the son of an Irish father and an Italian mother, studied Mendelssohn’s composition style in Leipzig. He was therefore, inevitably, the supreme English theater composer of his day, and his often Mozartean style of melody is not out of place in a bel canto festival. After all, in the fourteen operettas he…
Tell us: What’s your favorite Verdi performance?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Don’t cry because it’s over
Don’t cry because it’s over
Grand Tier Grab Bag hearkens back to the days when Sondra Radvanovsky — who is singing no Verdi at all next season — seemed like the Verdi soprano of reference.
Grand Tier Grab Bag hearkens back to the days when Sondra Radvanovsky — who is singing no Verdi at all next season — seemed like the Verdi soprano of reference.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Rizzin’ to the occasion
Rizzin’ to the occasion
Parterre Box features the Met’s current Eugene Onegin, Iurii Samoilov, in a performance of Rossini ahead of a return to Pesaro this summer.
Parterre Box features the Met’s current Eugene Onegin, Iurii Samoilov, in a performance of Rossini ahead of a return to Pesaro this summer.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
When they go low
When they go low
Nostalgic for bass month, Parterre Box offers excerpts from two young basses to watch: Giorgi Manoshvili and Patrick Guetti.
Nostalgic for bass month, Parterre Box offers excerpts from two young basses to watch: Giorgi Manoshvili and Patrick Guetti.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Nailin’ the coughin’
Nailin’ the coughin’
Rosa Feola, still scheduled for a run of performances as Violetta in New York this spring, is the subject of this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag.
Rosa Feola, still scheduled for a run of performances as Violetta in New York this spring, is the subject of this week’s Grand Tier Grab Bag.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Landing the plane
Landing the plane
With Nixon, Klinghoffer, and Andris Nelsons on the mind, Parterre Box offers a recording of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s recent John Adams outing.
With Nixon, Klinghoffer, and Andris Nelsons on the mind, Parterre Box offers a recording of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s recent John Adams outing.
Grand Tier Grab Bag
Le galant tireur
Le galant tireur
American tenor Charles Castronovo performs a bit of Weber’s Der Freischütz ahead of the opportunity to hear Berlioz‘s take on the score at Carnegie Hall next week.
American tenor Charles Castronovo performs a bit of Weber’s Der Freischütz ahead of the opportunity to hear Berlioz‘s take on the score at Carnegie Hall next week.
On this first day of full equality here in New York, La Cieca is going to be just the teensiest bit quizzical and suggest listening to a couple of works that prove that not all operas are created equal! The two grand selections follow the jump.
Which NYCO board member—who haunted the company’s Lincoln Center venue for many years—has just taken a walk, resigning in sympathy with the unions?
“A singing crossbreed—a fox with human intelligence—stars in Leos Janacek’s opera, The Cunning Little Vixen. If only the New York Philharmonic’s semistaged performance Wednesday night were as successful a hybrid.” [New York Post]
Which legendary musician secretly went into surgery over the weekend, in hopes of once more becoming the (ahem) backbone of his company?
La Cieca’s spy attended today’s confab between George Steel (representing NYCO) and 29 singers and production personnel (AGMA) and 24 orchestra members (Local 802). The spy’s observations after the jump.
UPDATE: La Cieca has just heard from Rosalind Elias‘s management with the news that the veteran mezzo will indeed transfer to Broadway with the Kennedy Center company of Follies. Apparently Playbill was given erroneous information.
La Cieca is informed that the New York City Opera and AGMA are meeting today for discussions relating to the company’s 2011-12 schedule—which, by the way, is supposed to be announced sometime this week, but La Cieca isn’t holding her breath.
“That high E-natural must be up there somewhere,” these two ladies seem to be saying in unison: Voice of the Century Joan Sutherland and Voice of the Xtabay Yma Sumac.
Talk of the Town
The Talk of the Town
A favorite Verdi performance from Arrigo
A favorite Verdi performance from Arrigo
My favorite Verdi performance is Claudio Abbado Don Carlo opening of the Scala.
My favorite Verdi performance is Claudio Abbado Don Carlo opening of the Scala.
The Talk of the Town
A favorite Verdi performance from Peter Russell
A favorite Verdi performance from Peter Russell
The purely musical performance preserved here is thrilling, ratcheted to a higher intensity than the Deutsche Grammophon studio recording
The purely musical performance preserved here is thrilling, ratcheted to a higher intensity than the Deutsche Grammophon studio recording
The Talk of the Town
A favorite Verdi performance from TC
A favorite Verdi performance from TC
Victoria de los Ángeles has always been my Violetta of choice, a portrayal that never ceases to move me.
Victoria de los Ángeles has always been my Violetta of choice, a portrayal that never ceases to move me.
The Talk of the Town
A favorite Verdi performance from Anna Netrebko
A favorite Verdi performance from Anna Netrebko
I feel that the best years of Maria Callas’s vocalità, when we hear such a unique freedom and generosity in her singing, were captured in her early recordings.
I feel that the best years of Maria Callas’s vocalità, when we hear such a unique freedom and generosity in her singing, were captured in her early recordings.
The Talk of the Town
A favorite Verdi performance from Armerjacquino
A favorite Verdi performance from Armerjacquino
Before the screams of horror begin, it says ‘favorite’, not best.
Before the screams of horror begin, it says ‘favorite’, not best.
The Talk of the Town
A favorite Verdi performance from Remko Jas
A favorite Verdi performance from Remko Jas
Elisabeth Grümmer was, of course, very good at Wagnerian prayers, but she also shines in this Verdi prayer.
Elisabeth Grümmer was, of course, very good at Wagnerian prayers, but she also shines in this Verdi prayer.
For you, cher public (pictured), your weekly off-topic general discussion thread.
If a new release of Verdi songs from Telos masquerades as a vanity project by Diana Damrau, the packaging takes the blame. Despite a starring place on the slip cover and top billing, Damrau sings less than a third of the tracks. It’s a pity, because she clearly found something of interest in the works…
Your season planning for Opera Orchestra of New York, cher public, looks a lot more interesting than what the company’s own artistic adminstration is likely to come up with. Thus far, La Cieca has heard one date for certain: that Eve Queler default choice Rienzi, this time with Elisabete Matos—presumably in the not very interesting…
La Cieca congratulates the marketing department of the heretofore flailing New York City Opera, who seem finally to have hit upon a strategy that will get a response from the company’s understandably confused subscribers. The latest appeal, after the jump.
Today is the 211th anniversary of the day the events in Puccini’s Tosca took place, June 17, 1800. (This detail is not mentioned in the libretto, but it is specified in the stage directions for Victorien Sardou’s play La Tosca: “La scène à Rome, le 17 juin 1800.” To celebrate this anniversary of this most…
La Cieca’s lovely and talented colleague Olivia Giovetti takes on the Met’s gift shop in the latest installment of her WQX-Aria blog. La Cieca herself is of at the very least two minds about the changes to the gift shop, but she’ll invite you, the cher public, to chew on this issue before starts gnawing…
Despite baby-steps over the years, America’s musical scene, especially opera, remains decidedly un-HIP. (HIP: “historically-informed performance,” also called “period performance.”) While European opera houses turn increasingly to “original instrument” orchestras and specialist singers for seventeenth and eighteenth century works, this rarely occurs in the US.
The Metropolitan Opera expects to achieve a balanced budget in 2011, the first for the company since 2004. In other good news, contributions and grants were up about 21% between 2009 and 2010; program service revenue rose about 6% in the same period. Maestro James Levine took a 5% pay cut, sending his 2010 compensation…
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