New York-based artist Nikos Floros has created an artistic tribute to La Divina herself from 20 thousand beer and soft drink cans for an art exhibition in Athens. The exhibition includes a sculptural gown inspired by Maria Callas’s costume for Iphigénie en Tauride featuring ring-pulls that become a lace-like collar. A kimono sculpture is inspired […]
Missed the Met’s cattlecall for War and Peace supers? Don’t worry! All the really cool kids are going to Toronto to be extras in the opera house sequence of Repo! The Genetic Opera, lensing this week. According to the myspace site of director Darren Lynn Bousman (auteur of Saw II), the production is looking for […]
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).
“If Marilyn Monroe was the 1950’s’ blond bombshell, Grace Kelly was the era’s tenor sex — sleek, sophisticated and above all, cool.” — New York Post
“The Metropolitan Opera’s opening week offered two super-starry nights that more than offset a misfired new production across the plaza at the New York City Opera.” After some rather frustrating technical delays, our JJ‘s reviews of the Met’s Roméo and Lucia, plus the NYCO’s Cav/Pag, are at last online at Gay City News. (Perhaps at […]
As if Tomotaka Okamoto weren’t enough, here’s another countertenor looming on the horizon: Max Emanuel Cencic. Now, don’t get La Cieca wrong. She loves her some countertenors, and she frankly adores how Herr Cenic rocks the tête de peau. She warmly congratulates him on his burgeoning discography and of course wishes him well in his […]
Metrosexual maestro Phillipe Jordan, currently gracing our Gotham at the helm of the Met’s Le nozze di Figaro, has been named for the next music director of the Opéra National de Paris, effective with the 2009-10 season. His appointment was announced Wednesday evening at a meeting of the company’s board of directors, according to PlaybillArts. […]
La Cieca performs a dramatic reading from The Greatest Opera Novel Ever Written — and that’s merely a curtain-raiser to the second act of Verdi’s Ernani, starring Anita Cerquetti, Mario del Monaco, Ettore Bastianini and Boris Christoff, under the baton of that icon of gaiety Dimitri Mitropoulos. Well, what are you waiting for? Go directly […]
La Cieca notices there are only a few tickets remaining to the Met’s October 25 Lucia, featuring, as if she has to tell you, Stephen Costello‘s role debut as Edgardo. Don’t waste any more time, cher public.
In the words of the immortal Leonard Pinth-Garnell, “Monumentally ill-advised!” UPDATE: The video has, perhaps unsurprisingly, been removed from YouTube. There are a few stills, however, on the tenor’s website. By the way, if you think the costume looks familiar, that’s because you’ve seen it before.
La Cieca’s spy backstage at the Met burbles about the most interesting spectacle so far at the new Macbeth: “Maria Guleghina’s rehearsal garb! One day she sported a green spaghetti-strap midriff top (that’s right, she wore a belly shirt), with a sequined crown across her tits.”
Worlds collide, or maybe converge, when Alex Ross (right) the New Yorker‘s classical music go-to guy sits down with Doree Shafrir (not pictured), gawker gossip girl emeritus, for a confab about life, love, Ugly Betty and, of course the long-awaited The Rest is Noise, skedded to drop October 16. Look for the interview in the […]
La Cieca introduces a new feature on parterre.com, the guest review. First up to bat is longtime print zine stalwart Little Stevie, who saw Lucia di Lammermoor last night. Take this as you will: based on this evenings performance the new Met Lucia is pretty bad. The acclaimed Ms. Zimmerman simply doesn’t know how to […]
Autumn in New York means many things to many people. To some, it’s glittering crowds and shimmering clouds in canyons of steel; others reflect upon upon jaded roués and gay divorcées who lunch at the Ritz. To singers it’s the height of the allergy and cancellation season. But to us, the most echt of all […]
La Cieca is pleased to note that her little soupçon about the maestro’s errant email has now made it as far as the New York Daily News. True, it’s way down at the bottom of the Gatecrasher page (“Don’t Shoot the Messenger”), but, after all, classical music isn’t exactly “Pedro and Stifler want to par-tay […]
La Cieca only knows what she has heard so far on Sirius (i.e., through “Che tua madre”), but, my dears, Patricia Racette is such an improvement over last season’s Butterfly! Your doyenne will definitely make another visit to Minghella-land this season. So, who caught the prima in the house? What’s your take? And, those of […]
One of La Cieca’s dear colleagues (a Signor Maldè) forwarded some interesting information about this early but definitive example of the hunkentenor. The name of the gentleman (the tenor, that is, not the informant) was Eddy Ruhl, and he is perhaps best known for his recording of Cavaradossi in the notorious Vassilka Petrova Tosca. A […]
Admittedly, this item is ancient history, but here goes. Which curious, sexed-up Met hunks invaded a star dressing room and immediately got their original instruments a whole lot closer than an octave apart?
La Cieca has just heard that Marcello Giordani goes on tonight (i.e., two hours from now) as Roméo at the Met, jumping in for Joseph Kaiser who presumably is ill. That brings the total number of lovers for Anna Netrebko‘s Juliette to three after only four nights of the 10-performance run. By the end of […]
Aided and abetted by Noel Coward, the scintillating Mary Martin crosses over into operatic territory.
UPDATE: And now, my dears, we’ve even reached the AP! (How long before we’re on the UP and every other damn P?) La Cieca’s young, young, young friend Maury D’anatto writes: “Too funny, La Cieca: did you coin hunkentenor? Because there was just this intermission interview with Joseph Kaiser that went somewhat off the rails […]
Which world-class maestro is about ready to throw himself off of the roof since he accidentally cced a private email exchange to his entire list of contacts — including Mrs. Maestro? The exchange was eventually forwarded to La Cieca, who redacted some of the details for the sake of privacy, and now presents it for […]
In her ongoing efforts to monetize parterre.com, La Cieca has now partnered in a new and unusual way… with amazon.com, that is. The idea is that your doyenne selects products she thinks you, the cher public, will like; these items are then advertised on the site. Whatever purchases you make after click-through will result in […]
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