In the fall of 2010, director Andrei Konchalovsky and conductor Gianandrea Noseda struck up a collaboration for a new production of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, to be performed at Teatro Regio Torino, co-produced with Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia of Valencia and Fondazione Lirico Sinfonica Petruzzelli e Teatri di Bari.
Fertilization; birth; growth; decay. Eating; digestion; defecation; fermentation; biogas recovery; food production. Wagner’s Tannhäuser is a meditation on the relentless, repetition of cycles that define our existence and man’s insistence on the possibility salvation despite all the biochemical evidence to the contrary.
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).
La Lodoiska is a jewel composed by Giovanni (Johannes) Simone Mayr (1763-1845), a contemporary of Mozart and Beethoven. Although he did receive instruction in music at early age, Mayr did not have the chance to systematically study composition until he was in his mid-twenties when he came a pupil of Ferdinando Bertoni, the maestro di […]
Hard to believe anyone would be inside on such a lovely day, but La Cieca will just assume you all took your iPads out into the park. Anyway, here’s your off-topic thread for the week of August 29.
La Cieca has just heard that the acclaimed production of Parsifal by Stefan Herheim will be telecast and filmed for DVD release next summer in Bayreuth.
Since this lyric will not be sung in the Broadway revival of Follies this weekend (the performances are canceled), La Cieca has decided to invite the cher public to share their own favorite operatic hurricanes, storms and tempests. Your doyenne will start you off, after the jump.
Congratulations to the composer (Two Boys, Dark Sisters) and blogger on this day of transition from Wunderkind to Wundererwachsener. (Photo by Sam West)
It appears that tenor Stephen Costello, whom some of you guessed was a subject of a recent blind item, is not so centrally involved in the controversy as was imagined.
La Cieca has learned that The Metropolitan Opera Guild will pay tribute to legendary American mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne (right) on Monday, October 31, when stars, fans of opera, and the cream of New York’s society, business, and civic leaders assemble in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria for the Guild’s 77th Annual Luncheon.
Which Met production in the coming season has just had an entire scene axed? Was the aria in question too long, too vivid, too difficult to execute?
An aged Giacomo Casanova, forgotten and bored with life’s prospects, has decided to kill himself. This man, who has always lived according to the liberties of his chemical attractions, allowed himself to be ruled by Nature, now at the end attempts to assert control. But Nature, too crafty to be denied, holds him back from […]
Twentieth century opera just can’t get a break in Dallas, it seems. La Cieca has just heard that the company, which 86ed Katya Kabanova from their 2011 schedule, has just canceled Salome (slated to star Deborah Voigt) from fall 2013 plans.
Jonas Kaufmann has canceled a tour to Japan with the Teatro Comunale di Bologna in September in order to schedule surgery to remove a “node” from his chest. [Intermezzo]
Since it’s put on in lavish productions at the biggest houses, sung by the biggest stars, since it wrings such a rich sound out of such a small band, and since the musical, formal and literary ambitions of Richard Strauss and Hugo von Hofmannsthal’s great meta-opera are so very grand, it might be easy to […]
La Cieca (absent, trying to find out what the hell is taking so long with those marrons glacés) invites the cher public (pictured) to while away the week of August 22 talking of this, that, and nothing at all.
Our Doyenne demonstrated her omniscience once again by sending me a DVD of Rimsky Korsakov’s Le Coq d’Or (Zolotoy Petushok) to review. I’m with musicologist Richard Taruskin who stated that Rimsky Korsakov was “perhaps the most underrated composer of all time” (and I’m sure his editor insisted on including the “perhaps”).
A live webcast of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw from Glyndebourne may divert the parterrians this afternoon. The event commences at 12:45, with a place to discuss the proceedings at La Casa della Cieca.
Since an early appearance as Schaunard in Baz Luhrmann’s Broadway La bohème, barihunk Daniel Okulitch has been steadily building a substantial career. Along with noteworthy performances as Don Giovanni in New York and Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro in Los Angeles, much of his career has been centered on contemporary work. He has leading […]
Though Brad Wilber‘s lamented site is no more, opera gossip refuses to die. For example, La Cieca has just heard that for an upcoming opening night at the Metropolitan Opera a beloved and (that word again!) charismatic tenor will return to the house after a six season absence. So now you know more or less […]
Friend of the Box Zachary Woolfe follows up his provocative NYT article on charisma with an invitation to discuss this elusive quality with his cher public, a group of which La Cieca is sure you parterriani represent a significant subset. Let yourselves be heard!
“Der Tenor Jonas Kaufmann… Im FOCUS-Online-Interview spricht er über Politik, Yoga und die Gründe, warum Sänger kein Sixpack haben.”
Joyce DiDonato enjoys the rare cachet of having three studio-recorded operas released in the past three years while other famous divas must be content with “just” DVDs. Although two of Renée Fleming’s Violettas have found their way onto video in less than five years (why??), “the people’s diva” has only recorded one studio opera in […]
Jummy Jonas Kaufmann and awe-inspiring Anna Netrebko team for the great duet from Manon, as heard last night at the Waldbühne Berlin.
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