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Austrian mezzo Angelika Kirchschlager left an incomplete impression as a Lieder singer Sunday night, in a quirky recital program of Brahms, Wolf, Mahler and Reynaldo Hahn, with pianist Warren Jones. Suffering from a cough and swallowing some words, Ms. Kirchschlager succeeded more in gesture than details. Breezing through Brahms’ songs “Meine liebe ist grün,” “Über die Heide,” and “Salome,” faux-naïve songs…
Or is La Cieca mistaken: could this rather be Alfred Deller‘s “after hours” show?
“They’re known for their great bods and for breathless blogs written by devoted admirers. Bearers of great pecs and pipes, barihunks like Matthew Worth and Tom Forde are bringing high art to the masses in a universally appealing form. And the dark-haired Gunn, all 6 broadly muscled feet of him, is king of that particular…
“This is the second of 3 postings to You Tube of a complete video of the curtain calls for … Nina Ananiashvili‘s final performance with ABT at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center in New York….” [YouTube]
“Not since the young Jolanda Meneguzzer has anyone jumped the pearls in the often-cut Act 12 of this so very kinky work…” An operatic “mad-lib” type fill in the blanks game, after the jump.
Right the first time, WindyCityOperaMan! Last week’s Regie quiz was indeed Das Rheingold — as envisioned by Barrie Kosky for Staatsoper Hannover. You will forgive La Cieca for saying that either the quizzes are getting too easy or the cher public are getting too smart! As such, your doyenne has put her back into it…
La Cieca’s saturation coverage of the Met’s new Contes d’Hoffmann begins officially on Monday, when one of her most reliable and most devious spies promises a report from the dress rehearsal. You, the cher public, will be expected to sound off loud and clear during the opening night chat on Thursday at 8:00 pm.
The votes are in, and the cher public have chosen wisely, La Cieca thinks. Our listening/chatting experience at 1:00 this afternoon will be Verdi’s Don Carlos (or, as it should be called in this context, Don Carlo) in a performance recorded earlier this year at Covent Garden.
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
Goodnight, Irene
Goodnight, Irene
Grand Tier Grab Bag features the American Zwischenfach mezzo Irene Roberts ahead of an eclectic season of Wagner.
Grand Tier Grab Bag features the American Zwischenfach mezzo Irene Roberts ahead of an eclectic season of Wagner.
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.
So La Cieca can only assume at this point that Franco Zeffirelli wants to spare his family the expense of an elaborate funeral, because he does seem to be going out of his way to alienate not only colleagues but the public as well. Now the legendary stage director has protested the appearance of popular…
Remember Dragana Jugovic del Monaco? Oh, come on, who could ever forget? Well, she’s back (or was back, anyway, as of 1999) for the following crossover effort with a pop singer who La Cieca supposes must be billed as something like “The Ozzy Osbourne of the Republic of Serbia.”
As a warmup for the impending Saturday afternoon Met broadcast chats, La Cieca thought the cher public would like to convene tomorrow in the PM to flex their chatting muscles. Which opera to be broadcast on the internet tomorrow should we hear and discuss?
La Cieca is a big enough woman to admit when she is bested, and bested she is… in the Tubedubber department.
On Monday, a A solo recital by Cheryl Studer sold so few tickets that the organizers of the event didn’t even bother to show up at the venue on the night of the performance. [Tagesspiegel]
La Cieca’s misnomered intime No Expert writes: The New Orleans Opera Association likes to describe New Orleans as “America’s First City of Opera,” and it’s true that opera performance has a long history in the Crescent City, dating back to at least 1796 when André Ernest Grétry’s Sylvain was presented. Since then, New Orleans, and…
La Cieca has a new favorite thing. It’s called Tubedubber, and what it does is it allows you to mix the video from one YouTube clip with the audio (soundtrack) from another.
A snippet of the Berlin Lohengrin directed by Stefan Herheim, who is rapidly becoming one of La Cieca’s favorite Regisseurs!
Talk of the Town
The Talk of the Town
Yannick Nézet-Séguin is a great opera conductor
Yannick Nézet-Séguin is a great opera conductor
Historically, conductors were often viewed as rigid, authoritarian figures. Yannick Nézet-Séguin completely subverts this stereotype.
Historically, conductors were often viewed as rigid, authoritarian figures. Yannick Nézet-Séguin completely subverts this stereotype.
The Talk of the Town
Patrizia Ciofi should have made it to the Met
Patrizia Ciofi should have made it to the Met
The artist who I feel should have made it to the Met is Patrizia Ciofi.
The artist who I feel should have made it to the Met is Patrizia Ciofi.
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.
“In addition to her work on stage and in recordings, Renée Fleming has represented Rolex timepieces in print advertising since 2001. Master Chef Daniel Boulud has created the dessert ‘La Diva Renée’ (1999) in her honor, and she has inspired the ‘Renée Fleming Iris’ (2004), which has been replicated in porcelain by Boehm.
“Important warning: Covent Garden is marketing this as a family show for Christmas, but please don’t think of taking the children – they’ll be bored rigid and never want to go anywhere near an opera again.” With The Tsarina’s Slippers Francesca Zambello‘s nonstop string of successes just keeps on stringing along! [Telegraph]
After seeing a video excerpt from the Met’s Patrice Chéreau production of From the House of the Dead, I was struck by the cleanness of it all, the sets, the costumes, the tastefully muted colors, and the direction. No doubt it is moving, in its way, but is it relevant? It looks like generic suffering…
La Cieca is delighted to announce the 2009-2010 Saturday afternoon broadcast season brought to you by the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera Radio Network, beginning December 12. For each of these broadcasts, La Cieca will host (or at least leave the doors open for) a chat amongst the cher public.
On the heels of this, may I direct everyone’s attention to a funny and fascinating article about Stefan Herheim‘s production of Lohengrin from last spring at Berliner Staatsoper? Now we know what to do with those old costumes and sets that gather dust! [via the wellsungs]
“Since the 1918 premiere of Puccini’s Il Trittico, only two divas at the Met dared to sing the leading roles in all three of its one-act operas: Renata Scotto, a supreme vocal stylist, and Teresa Stratas, a magnetic singing actress. On Friday, Patricia Racette, who is not quite either of these things, took the plunge.”…
Smartly done, Kashania, who guessed almost immediately that last week’s Regie quiz represented From the House of the Dead — in a production by Calixto Bieito, by the way. But even oil drums, truck tires and life-sized airplanes suspended over the stage might look a little prim in contrast to this week’s puzzler:
Squirrel was expecting boobs! People, there were no boobs, and for that, I was a little disappointed.
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