A blind item catcheth a hare
La Cieca hopes all will be well. We must be patient; but I cannot choose but weep when I hear that soprano is going to cancel her appearances in that new Met production.
Recent Stories
Tout gai!
New York City Opera’s latest mailing invites the gays to “Learn to French!”
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).
What not to wear
The Met’s premiere production of Verdi’s Attila is terrible. Are you surprised? Attila is like a self-conscious stroll down Rodeo Drive – or even worse, to the Mall of America – reducing an opera about ruthless tyranny brought down by ruthless vengeance to a quaint and insipid fashion show.
A tenor for all seasons
La Cieca hears that Barry Banks will go onstage at the Met shortly — tonight, in fact — jumping in as Almaviva for an ailing Lawrence Brownlee.
Rome if you want to
Franco Vassallo (right) will sing the role of Ezio in the last three performances of Attila at the Met (March 19, 22, and 27).
There was skating on the Yangtze last night
In promoting the Great Performances at the Met telecast of Turandot, the copywriter for Channel 13 seems to miss the point by about as wide a mark as possible without actually hitting another point.
The boy friend
Parterre fave Joyce DiDonato headlines an all-star performance of Le nozze di Figaro broadcast this afternoon from Lyric Opera of Chicago. [WFMT]
Kukla, Fran and Regie
La Cieca is going to claim doyennical privilege here and say that the correct answers for last week’s Regie quiz are disqualified on grounds of a) silly guess and b) prior knowledge. Otherwise how could she go on with these Regie quizzes, knowing that such wildly unlikely images would immediately shout “Die Meistersinger” to you? […]
Winter meeting
This afternoon’s broadcast of La bohème (beginning at 1:00 pm) is sure to provoke lots of commentary from the parterriani. Conductor: Marco Armiliato; Mimì: Anna Netrebko; Musetta: Nicole Cabell; Rodolfo: Piotr Beczala; Marcello: Gerald Finley; Schaunard: Massimo Cavalletti; Colline: Oren Gradus; Benoit/Alcindoro: Paul Plishka.
Friday afternoon news dump, Rossini edition
No press release yet, but a couple of cher pubes have written to La Cieca noting that the name of Bruce Ford has disappeared from cast listings of the Met’s Armida, replaced by John Osborn.
Come Meoni al brando
This just in from the Met press office: “Giovanni Meoni will sing the role of Ezio in Verdi’s Attila on February 27, March 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 19, replacing Carlos Alvarez, who is ill.” (Photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera) UPDATED: Note the correction above, i.e., Meoni is currently announced only for the performances to […]
Snow day
What better way to stay warm (and to avoid falling branches) than to enjoy Our Own JJ in a rare symposium appearance? The bloviation transpires this afternoon, and details are after the jump.
Here is style. Here is skill. Here is forethought.
That Issac Mizrahi production of A Little Night Music for Opera Theater of St. Louis just got even gay gay gay gay gayer with the announcement of legendary diva Siân Phillips in the role of Madame Armfeldt. Also appearing will be notable non-slouches Amy Irving as Desiree and Ron Raines as Fredrik. [OTSL]
Regie is in the eye of the beholder
I really haven’t paid much attention to “opera regie,” so I can’t give you a firm definition of it. A while ago, a pithy and biting piece called “How to Opera Germanly” made the internet rounds, and it serves as a handy guide for we who are un- or under-initiated. This production of Haydn’s Orlando […]
White man’s burden
Impresarios from Cornwall to Caithness are delighted to hear today that another traditionally Albion-adminstered opera company has begun the succession process with the search for a new heir-presumptive. Or, in other words, Glimmerglass General and Artistic Director Michael MacLeod is out the door at the end of the 2010 season, and now we just have […]
Quando m’en chat
“Anna Netrebko‘s gorgeous lyric soprano proved an ideal fit for the role of tubercular seamstress Mimi. Like a great wine, her voice is sweet but complex, vivid with overtones. She acted with a calm, fatalistic quality, even in the death scene, where many singers overdo the coughing. Here Netrebko suggested waning strength by gradually letting […]
The Player from Aquileia
“It is easy to understand why Mr. Muti admires Mr. Abdrazakov, his young, imposing Attila.” [NYT]
La Cieca celebrates her birthday early this year
“On her new album, Dark Hope, opera star Renee Fleming takes a ‘visit to a new, parallel universe.’ … Dark Hope finds ‘The People’s Diva’ covering songs by Muse, Arcade Fire, The Mars Volta, Death Cab For Cutie, Leonard Cohen, Band Of Horses, and more.”
First!
“After 130 years, you’d think the Met has done everything at least once. But Tuesday was a night full of firsts…” Our own JJ, if by no means as thorough as Johnny Weird, has his own thoughts about the Met’s Attila. [New York Post]
Happy Birthday Renata Scotto
The tutelary diva of parterre.com is 76 years young today.
Dry cleaning
First things first: how are the clothes? Well, there’s enough leather to fill The Eagle ten times over, and there’s definitely fodder for intermission conversation: an adorable tweedy, puffy coat for Uldino; the pimped-out spiky bike helmet with the L.E.D. lights for Attila; all the L.E.D. lights in fact, like the ones that outline Ezio’s […]
Market Sher
La Cieca hears that Bartlett Sher has already signed a new three-opera deal with the Met. The director, who completes his first trifecta with next season’s Le Comte Ory, will reportedly return to the company in 2013-2014 for two productions, one of which will be that new Nico Muhly work, Two and a Half Men […]
The old lady thanks you all
You’ve done it again, cher public: that is, you’ve set a new record here at parterre.com. The busy activity yesterday including the discussion of the Met’s 2010-2011 season led to the highest number of visits on a single day in parterre.com history: 5,857!