This has to be the strangest staging of a Puccini opera ever! [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/JGa1Z2UlvMY” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] Ah, La Cieca must have her little joke! But seriously, cher public, the previous Regiequiz depicted (as so many of you divined) Parsifal. But wait! If this is Parsifal. . . . . . then surely this […]
La Cieca just heard that Ben Heppner has canceled the first night of the Met’s revival of Tristan und Isolde. John Mac Master will sing opposite Deborah Voigt.
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).
It has been said that at parterre.com the only way to separate the men from the boys is by calling in the vice cops, but La Cieca begs to differ. Many of the regulars on this site call themselves opera queens, but La Cieca is betting that perhaps one, perhaps several, perhaps none of you […]
Better to say “greatest misses,” La Cieca thinks, though even that phrase is flawed by a nearly Hollandaise level of inaccuracy. The errors and gaffes of the flannel-eared Times critic are surely too many and too egregious for one writer to anthologize; certainly they seem to have overwhelmed the Newspaper of Record’s squadrons of copy […]
Sarah Jessica Parker takes a spill at the Metropolitan Opera yesterday during a photo shoot with Annie Liebovitz for Vogue.
“You’d been so cruel to me at the party. Imitating me, making people laugh at me. I watched you get out of the car and I wanted to run you down, crush you. You saw the car coming. I hit the gates. Snapped my spine.”
La Cieca has removed the image of the Royal Opera’s Rigoletto production (you know, the one starring Juan Pablo di Pace and his amazing disappearing dick) from parterre.com in response to an email from the copyright owner of that photo, ArenaPAL.
Francesca Zambello, director of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, will be awarded the Chevalier Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters) by the French government for her contribution to French culture. The reception will be held on Monday, March 10th at The Cultural Services of the French Embassy.
Those early birds among you who were counting on getting a “preview” of this season’s Met Tristan tomorrow morning at the dress rehearsal will, as it turns out, will have to settle for only “und Isolde.” La Cieca has just been informed that Ben Heppner is sitting out the Generalprobe, with cover John Mac Master […]
Even a veteran sob sister like La Cieca cannot cover the vast field of opera all by herself, though goodness knows she does her best. But one must give credit where credit is due. As such your doyenne wants to offer her thanks to a journal which is rapidly becoming her source for the best […]
“I always cite the opera divas, like Leontyne Price. I mean, of course I’m an old fart, so I go back to these people who aren’t around anymore. But Leontyne Price and Marilyn Horne and Beverly Sills, I mean, they were glamour queens, and they were women who were not a size two …. It’s […]
La Cieca hears that tonight’s performance of La traviata at the Met will be dedicated to the memory of Jerry Hadley. Sadly, operatic legends have been (to put it bluntly) dying in such droves lately that the dedications are falling farther and farther behind. For example, the New York Times has reported that the Met […]
Dashing Donald Collup has expanded into yet another media niche with a series of podcasts featuring audio highlights from his acclaimed Astrid Varnay documentary DVD “Never Before.” Here la Varnay recalls her legendary colleague Zinka Milanov. More Astridiana (along with lots of other goodies from the Collup collection) may be found at the official “Never […]
At long last, the solution to the Casta Diva II Quiz.
Back the photo-only style of Regiequiz, but this production does look awfully chic, doesn’t it? Now if only someone could guess which opera it is!
A member of Facebook (which, La Cieca is told, is some kind of Information Superhighway thing that the youngsters seem to enjoy) forwards this invitation to what your doyenne (channeling Andy Samberg channeling Diablo Cody) likes to call Die Bloggerdammerung:
The colleague who sent the following item to La Cieca called it “the best opera story of the year,” and your doyenne cannot but agree. It seems that back in 2001 a young actor named Juan Pablo di Pace did a nude scene in David McVicar‘s production of Rigoletto for the Royal Opera. A photograph […]
La Cieca has just exited the season preview for the Met’s 08-09 season (no, she was not thrown out, she left of her own volition) and here’s what’s up.
Cher public, the Met is expected to unveil the specifics of their 2008-2009 season later today. While we’re waiting for all the luscious and/or gory details, La Cieca thought it might be fun to do a quick recap of the season as is is predicted on Brad Wilber‘s MetManiac site. Brad (who historically is spot-on […]
With his usual impeccable taste, Ed Rosen has posted five selections of prime Giuseppe di Stefano on his Premiere Opera Podcast page. Investigative Operachic follows reactions in the Italian media. Opera News has republished a profile of the tenor from 2000 with some representative di Stefano anecdotes. And here di Stefano appears on Il Musichiere, […]
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