“Playthings of the Gods: Essential Myths,” the Vertical Player Repertory’s evening of Monteverdi, Britten and Milhaud, heard October 8, was a satisfying treat. The soloists were excellent, although the venue, Christ Church Cobble Hill, had overwhelmingly boomy acoustics and robbed the audience of any nuance in the voices.
The Australian soprano, called “The Voice of the Century,” died yesterday. She was 83. [Sydney Morning Herald]
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).
Ever-vigilant Quanto Painy Fakor needed hardly more than a glance at last time’s Regie quiz to deduce the identity of the work: L’incoronazione di Poppea. Others of you quickly followed suit with the details of the company (Ópera de Oviedo) and director (Emilio Sagi). And now, Anna Bolena, right?
La Cieca is delighted to inform the cher public (pictured) that Betsy has managed in the very nick of time to aggregate a list of listening (and chatting) possibilities for this afternoon.
Even as La Cieca tippy-taps these words, the 30-hour Boston–New York–Boston marathon has begun for the maestro about whom the following was written less than two weeks ago: Still, the state of Mr. Levine’s health and music making were major concerns going into this evening. When he took his bow during the curtain calls he […]
“The director of Anna Bolena is looking for two (2) well-defined muscular men of impressive size to be two stags with antlers wrestling onstage shirtless and barefoot.” [Art&Seek]
Congratulations to Nicola Lischi, of the younger generation of critics the one with the best developed… knowledge of Italian opera, for his first review on Opera Brittania.
Says the Met press office: “Alfred Kim will make his Met debut as Manrico in three fall performances of Il Trovatore, replacing Marcelo Álvarez, who has withdrawn from the November 11, 15, and 19 performances for personal reasons.”
Kirill Petrenko will be the new General Music Director of the Bayerische Staatsoper, succeeding Kent Nagano on September 1, 2013 for a five-year contract. [Bayerische Staatsoper]
“Das neue Traumpaar” offer a duet from a their recent joint role debuts.
Which American opera company is about to break apart and make a brand new start in the form of a last-minute substitution in a prima donna title role?
There have been about 2,000 reviews of the Met’s new Rheingold so far, but for now, anyway, this one is my favorite—and not only for “Sid and Marty“.
La Cieca (third from right) has always prided herself on offering opportunities to the young, even if they aren’t always quick to pick up on her hints, and today is no exception. Your doyenne has several unusual (one might even say offbeat) opera events on the calendar, and she’d be interested in sending novice parterre […]
“In the Met’s Tales of Hoffmann, Giuseppe Filianoti plays a poet defeated by life. In reality, the 36-year-old singer’s brush with tragedy had a far happier ending.” The tenor talks to Our Own JJ in the New York Post.
Opera Music Broadcast is pleased to announce our first-ever LIVE VIDEO webcast featuring the Toledo Opera and their production of Ariadne auf Naxos. And La Cieca is pleased—nay, delighted—to invite the cher public to enjoy the webcast and to chat back here at La Casa della Cieca on Wednesday evening, October 6 at 7:00 PM […]
La Cieca has just been informed that Anita Rachvelishvili will make her Met debut in the title role of Carmen on January 5, 2011, replacing Kate Aldrich, who has withdrawn preggers. La Rachvelishvili also sings Carmen on January 8 and 13. Wait, there’s more!
“[El Gato con Botas] can be summed up in a single word: purr-fect.” Our Own JJ practices the art of the pullquote in the New York Post.
“Aida am Rhein,” an outdoor on-location live presentation of Verdi’s opera, with the cast of the current Calixto Bieito production in Basel. (So far as I can tell, Bieito didn’t direct the film or the outdoor spectacle, but presumably some of the dramatic ideas of his production were carried over into this performance.)
La Cieca notes that the Gran Teatre del Liceu production of Carmen, directed by Calixto Bieito and starring Beatrice Uria-Monzon, Roberto Alagna, Marina Poplavskaya and Erwin Schrott, will be broadcast to cinemas a couple of weeks from now.
Congratulations to parterre fave Andrew Richards, who was featured in the staging named Best Opera Production of 2009-2010 in Opernwelt magazine: Verdi’s Macbeth, directed by Krzysztof Warlikowski at La Monnaie in Brussels.
Stephen Wadsworth‘s vision of Boris Godunov will be more limited than Peter Stein‘s—at least so far as timing goes. Though the original director’s version would not have run anything near as long as his 12 hour Devils on Governor’s Island last summer, Wadsworth found a way to make the production both lighter in weight and […]
La Cieca would like to call the cher public’s attention to the new “share” buttons at the foot of each posting here on parterre.com. Clicking on the “Like” button will alert your Facebook friends of your affection for the given posting; the “Tweet” button will send the current posting to your Twitter feed.
Faithful and sharp-eared member of the cher public reedroom notes, “…an observation about the Levine 40th Wozzeck CD (Anja Silja/Jose van Dam)—the second CD (acts 2 and 3) has to be a different performance, different cast and different year. It is undoubtedly Hildegard Behrens on the 2nd CD. I don’t know who the baritone is […]
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