Edo it again
The Met’s January Rosenkavalier performances have been reassigned to maestro Edo de Waart as James Levine “takes it easy” preparing the new production of Les Contes d’Hoffmann.
Recent Stories
Polly want a
So, which composer wants to jump on this peach of a libretto? “The Met’s fund-raising office had kept in touch with Ms. Webster since then. It sent her books about the birds of Central Park; a volume called Red-Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park.”
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).
You’re going to scoop just what you sow
You know how you have this old friend you’ve known for 20 years now, who’s always been a little nuts, or gets a little high, or just is, you know, eccentric, but in a way that is so clueless that it’s kind of endearing? Someone you can count on for a laugh, because you always […]
Please, Louise
My post about Nielsen’s Maskarade outraged only a few of you, and inspired a passionate discussion about what works we’d like to see at the New New Met. (Thank you, Hans Lick, for your very complete wish list!) You are each now invited to vote for your three most longed-for revivals or premieres at the […]
A whole lot of look
What happens, La Cieca imagines, when Project Runway meets Carl Maria von Weber.
Gentleman prefers brunettes
It’s no easy easy task to “re-review” one of the most discussed and scrutinized opera productions of the last few years. Mary Zimmerman’s mise-en-scène of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor has been extensively examined since it was chosen to inaugurate the 2007/08 season of the Metropolitan Opera, provoking very mixed reactions both from the professional critics […]
La Grande Duchesse dell’Altra Notte…
A funny thing happened to me yesterday. I was desperate to go to Aprile Millo’s long awaited recital but it simply wasn’t in the budget. La Cieca sent a posting mentioning she would give her extra ticket to the first one who e-mails her. I sent it, I got it, and the rest is history…
An evening with Aprile
Attached you will find the song lineup for last night’s Aprile Millo recital, though as the saying goes, there were some changes to the printed program. The first half went more or less as planned, though after the R. Strauss a man exiting the auditorium tripped and fell in the aisle, hit his head on […]
Lock Up Raw
The Met’s new production of Janacek’s From the House of the Dead sets high standards for the company, but as an indicator of the Gelb Era, it may be too good to be true.
Where will the elite meet?
Far side of the lobby, near the big picture window overlooking the park.
O Hasmik addio!
Hui He will sing the title role of Verdi’s Aida at the Metropolitan Opera on March 26, 31, and April 3 matinee, replacing Hasmik Papian, who has withdrawn.
Cocktail party
I have just come back home from Le Poisson Rouge, a stylish multimedia art cabaret in Greenwich Village where Decca offered a sneak peak of Cecilia Bartoli‘s DVD Sacrificium, which will be released some time next year. I normally don’t drink liquor, but my duty as a reporter obliged me not to refuse a special […]
Cut! Print it!
Erstwhile opera blogger Nick Scholl (aka Trrill) is currently live-tweeting the Poisson Rouge “Sacrificium” launch party!
Opera is a meritocracy
They want it. The career. They want it really bad. So we learn from Susan Froemke’s Metropolitan Opera-commissioned documentary about the participants in the final round of the 2007 MetNational Council Auditions, which is out on DVD this month. Our own doyenne reviewed the film when it was screened as an HD theatrical event, and […]
Perfection
Our JJ writes his rave of raves: “If such a thing as perfection in opera is possible, in this House of the Dead, the Met achieves it.” [NY Post]
Future shock
La Cieca knows the cher public will be intrigued to hear that tomorrow night (Monday, November 16), NYC’s downtown classical music venue Le Poisson Rouge will offer a screening of Cecilia Bartoli in a live concert, filmed September 10, 2009. Meanwhile, in honor of this cinematic event, your doyenne is launching a parterre competition for […]
Forever Young
“For the premiere in 1918, the Metropolitan Opera marshaled … Florence Easton, whose repertory ranged from Carmen to Brünnhilde, as Loretta, the doting Gianni Schicchi’s ingénue daughter who winds him around her little finger with the Top 10 aria ‘O mio babbino caro’.” [NYT]
Truth: dare
Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center, celebrated mastermind of the financial turnarounds of the Royal Opera, American Ballet Theatre the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, has some interesting advice for arts organizations in our current troubled times. His ideas take on a strong resonance, La Cieca thinks, when applied to our big New York opera […]
Talking the talk
An elegantly beturbaned Miss Leontyne Price offers an object lesson in The Art of the Diva Interview.
Mystery meat
“What the…?” was my first thought when I opened the small manila package last week, unmarked save the NY return address. Inside I found a Wagner compilation CD set from an unknown label- not the obscure Spanish opera I had ordered online the week before. Although I saw no accompanying invoice, I assumed an Amazon […]
Regie apocalypse
Noel Dahling hedged his bets, but one of those bets paid off: no, that wasn’t Liù in the body bag, but it was in fact Siegfried — which means, of course, the opera was Götterdämmerung. For those among you who are devotees of the Regie art, the production is by La Fura dels baus.
Dead reckoning
Is it just me, or does this seem like using From the House of the Dead as a club to beat a dead horse?
Pole position
Dame Kiri te Kanawa‘s cousin (who calls the opera diva “auntie because of the age difference”) is promoting “Australia’s first pole-dancing championships.”