Recent Stories
“Because the one I had for lunch was delicious.”
Very few things intrigue me as much as analyzing belcanto operas, comparing their several versions and examining the composers’ second thoughts, modifications and revisions that, willingly or unwillingly, they made to their scores. I was already salivating when I heard that the Teatro Comunale di Bologna was going to perform Vincenzo Bellini’s I Puritani in…
The blog GTL Torn T (which La Cieca assumes has something to do with gay teens in torn t-shirts) offers a sound clip from the prima of Adriana Lecouvreur at the Royal Opera. Very attractive stuff, though La Cieca must insist that she does not care for that concert ending on “La dolcissima effigie!”
Whom would you prefer to pat down at an airline security check-in?
After a rather long afternoon at the Met, a member of the cher public writes: “The Don Carlo final dress was worth catching.” Our spy has more to say after the jump.
“Revival. Strange word, and creepy, when you think about it. Something used to be alive, then it wasn’t and now (presumably) it is, again. But it’s that last step, the actual reviving that seems so often to elude the revival of an opera production.” [Musical America]
La Cieca (left, seated) invites the cher public (center) to gather at La Cieca’s Gypsy Camp for a chat during tonight’s Met performance of Il trovatore this evening beginning at 8:00 pm. Details after the jump.
Seven decades of difference in age doesn’t stand in the way of a charming interview between Marta Eggerth and Zachary Woolfe on the occasion of her viewing her 1932 film Das Blaue vom Himmel for the very first time. (Prepare to be verklempt.) [New York Observer]
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.
La Cieca was bcc:ed on this response from a member of the cher public to a request from the New York City Opera. With the permisssion of the author, she is publishing the note here for your discussion.
I saw the final dress rehearsal of Adriana Lecouvreur at the Royal Opera House on Monday this week, and I think I have never seen the place so crowded for such an event. No wonder, for here was a cast you might dream of, in a highly finished piece of work mounted by one of…
Say what you like about the cher public, but they certainly know their Prokofiev! Within half an hour of La Cieca’s posting the most recent Regie quiz, two of you identified the production as The Love of Three Oranges. The staging, by the way, is from the Stadttheater Bern, and the director was Marc Adam.…
Which cord does one snip to make a castrato? So goes a running joke in The Last Castrato by Guy Fredrick Glass, a play about Alessandro Moreschi, the last living castrato and the only one ever recorded. Much of his career was spent as the first soprano of the Sistine Chapel Choir, both because of…
I attend the opera intent on enjoying myself. If the music is not my favorite, there is always something to like, be it a colleague’s individual performance, the discovery of a newcomer, nifty stagecraft or costumes, observing the movement skills of the various singers, or in worst-case scenarios, observing the audience’s boredom, carefully notating the…
Inspired by Our Own Camille (not pictured, obviously), La Cieca proposes a new competition in honor of the Met’s coming revival of La fanciulla del West. Your challenge: share with us the most suggestive double-entendre line in a published synopsis or review of Puccini’s opera.
La Cieca is pleased to announce that off-Broadway sensation (and parterre advertiser) The Last Castrato is offering a 50% discount on tickets to the cher public. Parterrians can enjoy this play with music suggested by the life and career of Alessandro Moreschi for only $9.00—less than the new Harry Potter! Simply use the code word “Parterre,”…
Trash television gets the “royal” treatment. [Danny Knows Best]
Talk of the Town
The Talk of the Town
A favorite Verdi performance from Tildy Diva
A favorite Verdi performance from Tildy Diva
A well-known Met Aïda with a starry cast from 1967 is TildyDiva’s Favorite Verdi Performance
A well-known Met Aïda with a starry cast from 1967 is TildyDiva’s Favorite Verdi Performance
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.
Our Own Ercole Farnese discovered and translated this interview in La Stampa with Jonas Kaufmann, in which the tenor discusses his “his idolatrous success with ladies and gay men, four fifths of the opera-goers.”
Which director is driving his Met cast crazy with his perfectionism? As if the rush to opening night is not enough, he’s insisting that every time a scene is rehearsed the blocking must be identical “for the HD broadcast.”
The annual Richard Tucker gala came and went at Avery Fisher Hall with the usual quota of gaffes, wardrobe malfunctions, no-shows, too-much-shows, substitutions and surprise guests (well, guest). And sandwiched between the routine, the egocentric and the just plain dull were moments of true dementia, the moments that we melomanes live and die for. Most…
Guess who stole the show last night at the Richard Tucker gala? [ABC News]
Truth is more brutal than fiction. Particularly when the truth is the story of Colonel Floyd James Thompson, whose nine years in captivity in Vietnam made him America’s longest-held prisoner of war. It’s perfect material for a chamber opera: an epic war story focused on the intimacy of a single excruciating life. It seems to…
The Austrian dramatic soprano was born November 14, 1926.
In the words of La Cieca’s old, old, old friend Mrs. Malaprop, “We will not anticipate the past, our retrospection will now be all to the future.” And that’s where our chat will be as well, if dear Betsy has anything to do with it.
I used to think that recital albums, greatest hits albums, and concert albums were just products of a singer’s vanity—or conductor—and that they terribly lacked imagination or preparation or dramatic heft. “Greatest Hits” albums frequently suffer from this affliction, as it is, more often than not, just a mish-mash of what this soprano or that…
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