Winners of the seventh annual F. Paul Driscoll Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence, or, as they are colloquially known, the Opera News Awards, have been announced. Accepting the coveted “Effies” on Sunday, April 29 at The Plaza in New York City will be sopranos Karita Mattila and Anja Silja, baritones Dmitri […]
It seems a thing incredible but fifty years ago Richard Strauss was regarded as the wunderkind composer of a few tone poems, three notable operas (all produced before the First World War) and then nothing notable during forty years of repetitious senility. Even Ariadne auf Naxos, today one of the most popular works in the […]
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).
After the Georges Antheil opera that was my first assignment from La Cieca, I have to confess feeling slightly relieved when I opened the parterre package to find: Billy Budd! And not only a Billy Budd, but one starring John Mark Ainsley! The rest of the cast looked similarly starry (pardon the pun), so I […]
Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades straddles two genres. With a macabre plot that explores the boundaries of human obsession, it’s an early psychological thriller that makes the audience engage in a kind of voyeurism Alfred Hitchcock loved. Yet the plot drawn from Pushkin and the striking Romantic score with its references to Mozart, Bizet and Grétry firmly […]
Here’s the place, cher public, where you can talk about anything that enters your pretty little heads during the first week of August.
Following the jump, about 45 minutes of highlights from last week’s telecast of Bizet’s opera from the Gran Teatre del Liceu, as sung by Fabio Armiliato, Béatrice-Uria Monzon, Maria Bayo and Kyle Ketelsen, directed by Calixto Bieito.
Where has the time gone? La Cieca was just reminded this morning that on Tuesday the 2012 recipients of the F. Paul Driscoll Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence (aka The Opera News Award) will be named. Though your doyenne has no details yet about which lucky opera types are to be […]
Sadly reduced to penury by music fans illegally downloading his music, the once-mighty Placido Domingo has resorted to whoring himself out to a recording industry organization whose noble purpose is to assure that sleazy A&R people continue to afford top-quality cocaine and hookers hard-working artists will receive just compensation for their work. Well, the legendary […]
The Bayreuth repertory continues today with a revival of the final triumph of the Wolfgang era, Parsifal in the production by Stefan Herheim, conducted by Daniele Gatti. The broadcast begins at 10:00 AM EDT on a variety of stations detailed at Operacast. Naturally La Casa della Cieca will be open for comments and especially questions.
You won’t need three guesses for this one: Which impresario has declared himself needful of a “ghost director” to repair an otherwise hopelessly shattered project?
Today’s episode of “Live from the Bayreuth Festival,” is the revival of Hans Neuenfels‘ rat-infested Lohengrin, a production most memorable last summer for the quicksilver conducting of Andris Nelsons, also returning this season. The broadcast proper begins at 10:00 AM EDT. For a list of web stations offering this program, go to Operacast, and naturally […]
This morning, live from the Bayreuth Festival, the season premiere of Katharina Wagner‘s controversial production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. The broadcast proper begins at 10:00 AM EDT. For a list of web stations offering this program, go to Operacast, and naturally La Casa della Cieca will be open for any Markers who care to […]
They’ve been celebrating the centennial of Gian-Carlo Menotti lately, spouting wild claims for the immortality of his music. He did have an impressive run of successes in the 1940s, but he lived till 2007 with many more premieres and nary another hit.
This morning, live from the Bayreuth Festival, you can hear the premiere of the Thomas Hengelbrock/Sebastian Baumgarten production of Tannhäuser. The broadcast proper begins at 10:00 AM EDT. For a list of web stations offering this program, go to Operacast, and naturally La Casa della Cieca will be open for the Chat Contest. (Photo © […]
Some good guesses, but, no, last week’s Regie quiz was neither Ariadne auf Naxos nor Auntie Mame, but rather that faded valentine that the occasional opera buff years to see revived: Thomas’ Mignon. (That blonde was, obviously Titania.) The staging was done for the Buxton Festival by Annilese Miskimmon. And and now for something completely […]
La Cieca (left) invites the cher public to indulge in yet another week of off-topic and general converation here in the thread devoted to that purpose.
Like LL Cool J, Nancy Reagan and Spider-Man before her, La Cieca is a proud resident of Queens, and in weather more temperate than today’s, she often enjoys the trek across the so-called “Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge. However, she does want to assure you that if you hear soprano vocalizing wafting over the East River, […]
With temperatures topping 100 and lousy air quality to boot here in for New York (and most everywhere else), there’s only one thing to say:
I was on the bus to Nürnberg today on the way to do Wagner tourism and hear Herr Sacro Fuoco tomorrow, and on the way I translated the juicy bits of the full print edition Anna Netrebko article… I was going to post it as a comment but it turns out I thought a lot […]
La Cieca’s operative in San Francisco writes: “SFO’s marketing for the upcoming production of Attila has offered a rotating door of Odabellas. Sadly, as of the latest update, I’m fearing the musical chairs may have landed on the least favorable of the announced divas.”
La Cieca has just heard that Salvatore Licitra is out of all performances of the Met’s 2012 revival of Ernani. The role of Verdi’s bandit will be shared between Marcello Giordani and Roberto DeBiasio.
Continuing what La Cieca hopes will be a fascinating discussion of the “sacro fuoco.” Let’s start with a Wikipedia definition: “Il sacro fuoco è una delle tante espressioni comuni per indicare una sacralità del fuoco, sia per ragioni religiose, sia per mera simbologia rituale.”
As was perhaps inevitable, Anna Netrebko is on the cusp of the Mildred Pierce phase of her career. The soprano talks about her plans to open a restaurant, her reasons for retiring Violetta from her repertoire, and her distaste for inflated ticket prices in an interview appearing in the German magazine Stern.
Exclusive opera reviews, commentary, and top reads
delivered to your email weekly…ish.
