Oh, Madeleine!
Renée Fleming (who will not be wearing the dress depicted, probably) leads the cast in tonight’s performance of Capriccio at the Met, and La Cieca is counting on you, the cher public, to lead the chat beginning at 8:00 pm.
Recent Stories
Le duc d’Orleans, le duc d’Ayen…
Former Editor of Opera News and Director of Opera-Music Theater at the National Endowment for the Arts Patrick J. Smith (pictured) yearns for the ancien régime: “We used to go to the opera for the voices. Zinka Milanov…” And so, anyone who has serious informed criticism of how Peter Gelb runs the Met now can […]
I’ll take the fall
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).
Children of the Zorn
“Esoteric music staged by an operatic outsider paid off for the New York City Opera on Friday night with Monodramas, a program of three single-character operas.” [New York Post]
One blind item
Which divo, as is his habit, refused to wear the costume assigned him for the climactic scene of a recent production, favoring instead “more sexy” garb?
Peter Gelb ci guarda — Peter Gelb ci vede!
The Met’s general manager indulges in the sincerest form of flattery by opening today’s New York Times response to his critics with a blind item in the style of a certain low-rent gossipmonger. After you figure out the identity of the “star soprano, [who,] thinking she might have been poisoned, withdrew from the cast,” you […]
Happy Birthday Magda Olivero
The very best wishes to the ultimate prima donna on the occasion of the 101st anniversary of her birth!
Fresh, direct
Directors love directing Wagner, or rather, they love directing their versions of Wagner. They don’t seem to like the operas very much. We all know what we’re going to see if we travel to Bayreuth or Berlin or Stuttgart for an evening: the regietheater world of concept grafted over concept grafted over concept with the […]
Footsteps on the Regie
Much too easy was the recent “Reverse Regie” quiz: all too obviously A Kiss to the Flame is a version of Il trovatore! A return to our traditional format does not mean a return to traditional staging, as you will see after the jump.
Comte me in
Chat tonight, naturally, during the prima of Le Comte Ory from the Met.
String theory
“Puppets, of course, can be diverting, but they have no depth. This is fine if your audience has, as Mr. Lepage must hope, childlike emotional demands. But ultimately, for an adult, watching puppets is simply boring after a while, not because they’re not beautifully done, but because they’re not alive. After the initial burst of […]
Future imperfect
The world has come to an end and we are at the end of the world, the collapsed ruins of a bridge that can no longer be crossed. There is no greenery; the few trees that are left are dead and being chopped down for fuel. Shell-shocked survivors wander through this hellscape, fighting over the […]
Below the belt
Three of the Met’s most cunning vocalists, Juan Diego Flórez, Joyce DiDonato and Diana Damrau, wrap their tongues around the trio from Le Comte Ory.
Retirement of a thousand cuts continues
This just in from the Met press office: “On the advice of his doctors, James Levine will reduce his conducting dates at the Met for the rest of the current season while he continues to recover from recent procedures to alleviate back pain. His planned performances of Das Rheingold on March 30 and April 2 will […]
In the realm of the senses
Pornography being the seminal [sic] art form of our time, through which every other art is interpreted (I lament this, but what can you do?), and opera being in one of its periodic up-cycles, new ones being composed and premiered, old ones being dusted off for re-use, and stage directors feeling impelled, as they do, […]
Sunday in Stuttgart
Just five hours from now: Parsifal! Musikalische Leitung: Manfred Honeck; Regie: Calixto Bieito; Gurnemanz: Attila Jun; Amfortas: Gregg Baker; Parsifal: Andrew Richards; Klingsor: Claudio Otelli: Kundry: Christiane Iven; Titurel: Matthias Hölle.
Scale model
Opera is about the possibility of transformation. An unassuming woman can walk in through the theater’s stage door and emerge on stage as fiery princess capable of making the walls rattle. Alas, these transformations inevitably fail to stick. Every Turandot must hang up her crown; every Elektra must put down her ax one final time. […]
Garden variety
Kasper Holten, director of the hunkalicious film Juan as well as current artistic director of Royal Danish Opera, will succeed Elaine Padmore as director of opera at the Royal Opera House starting next year. [The Stage]
Mozart at the peepshow
First night in Berlin, since the feared jet lag did not, in fact, do your doyenne in, was spent at the Komische Oper seeing Die Entführung aus dem Serail in the “notorious” Calixto Bieito production. La Cieca’s opinion?
Till we meet again!
La Cieca will next post from the dear old Deutschland, cher public!
Feline AIDS continues unabated
“[J]udging singers in their 20s is truly difficult, especially with so much at stake for the finalists, including a $15,000 cash prize for each winner. Comparably gifted pianists in their 20s are much more likely to be technically assured and finished performers. Operatic voices, though, need long nurturing. Most young singers are still working out […]
Chat in exile
While La Cieca (not pictured) is nosing about the Old World, she fully expects the rest of you to keep on chatting as necessary. A list of chat-appropriate broadcasts follows the jump.
Regietourneereiseverlauf
Or, for those of you who don’t take pleasure as La Cieca does in inventing totally bogus German compound words, Itinerary for the Regie Tour. Your doyenne and faithful sidekick Dawn Fatale (also pictured) will be hitting the continent later this week for a taste of productions done in the German style. Any European members […]