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No, the above image is not from Sunday’s upcoming First Ever East Coast Parterre Meet and Greet, but rather dear Mr. Hogarth’s take on “The Rake’s Progress.” A more modern treatment of theme of the dissolute punished (the Stravinsky opera, La Cieca means) will be yours to enjoy via the magic of webcasting tomorrow night…
Don Pasquale is one of those operas that make listeners feel very happy and gay, who, after seeing it, live happily ever after and gayer than before. It’s about a whore who needs to get laid, with an eye on the young (once and still bottom) hunk versus the older (once top, yes you guessed…
“What do you call a sex comedy that’s neither funny nor sexy? At the Met on Tuesday night, you’d have called it Cosi Fan Tutte.” [New York Post]
La Cieca has managed to nab a few moments of video of tonight’s performance of Vec Makropulos from San Francisco, proving that Karita Mattila is indeed today’s ideal interpreter of the role of Emilia Marty. [Video]
“Carmen, a passionate, headstrong gypsy and one of the best-known characters in opera, is famously enigmatic, but Ms. Garanca takes that quality almost to the point of anonymity. It can often seem not that she’s a bad actress but that she’s not quite sure what acting is.” Zealous Zachary Woolfe mulls The Garanca Paradox.
Reminder, all: the First Ever East Coast Parterre Meet and Greet is coming soon: Sunday November 14, to be exact. Here’s a reminder of the complete details, and, as an added enticement, there’s some video (apparently sent back from the future; I don’t pretend to understand the technology) of La Cieca’s participation in the festivities—after…
The dark and dreary imagery from last week’s Regie quiz stumped more than a few of the cher public, until finally Manou made a hestitant guess: “Kat’a Kabanova?”—which was in, fact, correct. (The production is by Andrea Breth for La Monnaie.) La Cieca trusts this week’s photos will lead to a similarly entertaining range of…
On behalf of (left to right) Miah Persson, Pavol Breslik, Isabel Leonard and Nathan Gunn, your doyenne invites the cher public to gather at La Cieca’s Dream House for a chat during the prima of the Met’s Così fan tutte this evening beginning at 8:00 pm. Details after the jump.
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.
“Following up on its brassy season opener, Bernstein’s A Quiet Place, New York City Opera is charming audiences with Intermezzo, a comedy inspired by a real-life episode in the life of the opera’s composer, Richard Strauss.” [New York Post]
This review was not going to be primarily about Shirley Verrett. She is not a singer I am all that familiar with and when I was sent this DVD of Tosca to review a week ago, I focused more on the director of the production, baritone-turned-producer Tito Gobbi, than on the singers. But sometimes life…
According to Our Own JJ, there was skating on the ramparts of Seville last Thursday night. [New York Post]
When handing out the goodies, the gods weren’t stingy with Shirley Verrett. Few opera singers were as prodigiously gifted as Verrett: the perfect amalgam of Kunst and Stimm housed in a frame of voluptuous allure. In addition to an instrument of stunning natural beauty and easy range, Verrett displayed superior musicianship, dramatic intelligence and searing…
The spectacular dramatic soprano was born 74 years ago today in Pontnewynydd, Wales. She is seen below in one of her less familiar (though no less effective) roles, Hanna in Die Lustige Witwe.
[@zwoolfe]
“…Don José stabs Carmen in the gripping finale.” [NYT]
Betsy (pictured) writes: Some people say I dress too gay, But ev’ry day, I feel so gay; And when I’m gay, I dress that way, Is something wrong with that?
Talk of the Town
The Talk of the Town
Giannina Arangi-Lombardi never made it to the Met
Giannina Arangi-Lombardi never made it to the Met
Giannina Arangi-Lombardi never sang at the Met.
Giannina Arangi-Lombardi never sang at the Met.
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.
La Cieca has just heard that magnificent American mezzo-soprano and, later, soprano Shirley Verrett died earlier today. She was 79.
Which would-be hunk has taken to stripping off his shirt in mid-rehearsal? He eventually covers his tawny torso with a t-shirt, but meanwhile he basks like an infant in his Met colleagues’ gaze.
This just in from the Met press office: “William Shimell will sing the role of Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Così fan tutte for all performances this season, replacing Wolfgang Holzmair who is suffering from a sinus infection.” Mr. Holzmair’s sinus infection is apparently scheduled to linger through December 2.
“A few critics hosannaed ‘Thanks be to Great God Lenny for smooching us once more with his plump, moist genius,’ but the majority echoed Cecil B. DeMille’s tactful reaction to Norma Desmond’s bizarre comeback screenplay, “There are some good things in it…’” Our Own JJ reflects on Christopher Alden‘s direction of A Quiet Place at…
Attention gamins, cigarières, picadors, and other drôles de gens: the time approaches for our weekly evening live chat. And this time La Cieca remembered! The opera is Carmen, the start time is 8:00 pm, and le programme avec les détails follows the jump.
“Tyler Perry‘s… For Colored Girls does feel like a ghoulish joke, a dated horror show bordering on parody. It’s both operatic and tone deaf, with explosions of hysteria that include a drunken Macy Gray performing a back-alley abortion and the conversion of a poem spoken by [Ntozake] Shange‘s Lady in Purple into an actual opera…
Were the Swan of Catania as immortal as his melodies, he would be would be 209 years old today! Admirers of the “King of Cantilena” are invited to follow La Cieca’s example and post YouTube clips of favorite Bellini morceaux.
A painter’s nightmares of death start to become real. A man’s lover dies of a flesh-eating plague and inhabits the body of a new young fling. A TV news anchor finds herself on the other side of the headlines, drowning in the Holland Tunnel. If Edgar Allan Poe were alive today, these are the operas…
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