Recent Stories
You may recall, cher public, that a few weeks ago La Cieca challenged you to identify the blurbs for that new picture book (James Levine: 40 Years at The Metropolitan Opera, and yes, it’s available on Amazon!) Where was I, oh, yes. Anyway, La Cieca supplied three of the back cover blurbs and you were…
“It’s fortunate that Lulu at Den Norske Opera was the last stop on the ‘Regietournee,’ because honestly anything after that would have amounted to an anticlimax. If there is a more brilliant director working in opera today than Stefan Herheim, well, maybe I shouldn’t see any of his work, because it might be too much…
“ll y avait pourtant parmi ce public de première des spectateurs moins convaincus de la pertinence de l’énorme machine de scène créée par l’équipe de Lepage. La chanteuse Patti Smith, croisée au deuxième entracte, la trouvait lourde et encombrante et lui imputait la responsabilité des trébuchements de Deborah Voigt, qui incarne Brünnhilde, la Walkyrie.” [La…
Opera companies get the marketing departments they deserve, apparently.
“Near the end of Robert Lepage‘s production of Wagner’s Die Walküre, which opened at the Metropolitan Opera on Friday, there is a moment of arresting visual beauty. The raked stage slowly rises and, with the help of projections, turns into a looming, stark, snow-covered mountain. It’s a breathtaking transformation, one that encapsulates everything that’s wrong…
La Cieca hears that soprano Angela Meade has been named the winner of the 2011 Richard Tucker Award. (Photo: Marty Sohl, Metropolitan Opera)
“Everyone now tiptoes around James Levine, with breath held and fingers crossed waiting for the next health update. He has already received ecstatic notices in some quarters for this performance, but to my ears that is either misplaced charity or simply wishful thinking….
It’s Holy Week (as I write) and I just received this new CD from our Doyenne. Good timing. For the concert stage (and the opera house), I think of Pergolesi as essentially a one-hit wonder (each). I won’t pretend to know his opera buffa, La Serva Padrona, let alone hide the fact that I drove right…
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.
Which opera company had its mettle tested by a coup d’état last week, only to see the upsurper barred because he already puts the lion’s share of his attention elsewhere?
In this new Decca DVD of Tosca we find a highly intellectual, even fascinating staging at odds with the visceral nature of the original melodrama but one that inspires its cast to great heights. Robert Carsen is a clever producer with an elegant visual palette. He employs the same directorial strategy as his famous Mefistofele…
“Director Robert Lepage’s obsession with eye-popping visuals showed little concern for the work’s complex intellectual and moral dimensions.” [New York Post]
David McVicar’s ravishingly lurid 2008 production of Strauss’s Salome for the Royal Opera House Covent Garden has been issued as an HD-filmed DVD from Opus Arte. Now, Strauss’s music is ravishingly lurid on its own, so I came to this production, which claims as a visual source reference the Pasolini film Salo, The 120 Days…
When La Cieca is asked the secret of a successful chat for the opening night of Die Walküre at the Met, her answer is “a comfortable desk chair.” And so, wishing you, the cher public, the best of luck with your Sitzfleisch, here are the details for tonight’s chat, which begins at 6:30 pm.
“Not unlike Calisto and Linfea, two of the nymphs in Cavalli’s 1651 opera La Calisto who inhabit the Arcadia under the spell of the goddess Diana, we meet at river banks, so to speak, and feed each other’s adoration for the Huntress.” Bloggress Lydia Perovi? discusses the “Otter effect” on “relatively reasonable” gay women at…
Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke is the frontrunner to direct the 2013 Bayreuth Ring, Handelsblatt reports. (If the name sounds familiar, it may be because Haneke was announced to direct Cosi fan tutte at NYCO during the 2012 season projected by Gerard Mortier.) Dark horses for the prestigious Green Hill gig include Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck…
Houston Grand Opera’s Brit-in-Chief Anthony Freud will take an early departure of his post (recently extended to 2015) to move into the power vacuum created by the departure of William Mason from Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2012, says Culturemap Houston.
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.
“First witches, now ghosts. But while Broadway’s Wicked proved golden for Stephen Schwartz, his Séance on a Wet Afternoon came up lifeless and damp Tuesday night at its City Opera premiere.” [New York Post] (Photo: Carol Rosegg)
It’s official: Peter Gelb says the Met is going to Japan! [Wall Street Journal]
You really didn’t think your doyenne would let a top-secret dress rehearsal at the Met slip away without getting an exclusive on-the-scene report for you, the cher public? Now, did you? Well, if you did, you’re wrong, because La Cieca’s mole (pictured) has filed the following report:
Our Own JJ (not pictured) gets the Staatsoper Stuttgart experience off his chest, to the tune of about 4,000 words, in his new blog post at Musical America. Included is a massive and (one hopes) final deconstruction of the Calixto Bieito Parsifal.
The word traditional, when used to describe opera productions can imply a certain setting, costuming, stage action, or even overall dramatic conception (or lack thereof). Tradition at its best can provide a straightforward backdrop for the genius of a work to unfold, and at its worst weigh an opera down with outdated and vapid conventions.…
Which regisseur might as well have chosen to put his stagehands in traditional Noh costumes, since (what with the mammoth technical problems associated with this production) it has become obvious that, come opening night, the scene-shifters are going to be almost as visible as the singers?
Die Zauberflöte is a perennial favorite with audiences, and modern productions have attracted top singers and production teams. Yet every production struggles with the performance text, particularly with the issues of race and sex. The dreams of the Enlightenment may be lovely, but the social mores of their dreamers have not aged gracefully. Despite a…
“In New York… opera directors don’t matter so much. In Europe, it’s another story: There, the director’s curtain call provokes the wildest excitement of the night.” The long-awaited “Regie” piece by Our Own JJ appears in the New York Post.
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