With honor
Puccini’s Madama Butterfly with an unexpected heroine: the electrifying Julia Varady, seduced and abandoned by the suavely ardent Giacomo Aragall.
Daniel Barenboim
47 pieces since 2007 — at 7 companies, most often at La Scala.
47
pieces
7
companies
20
years
No contest
Richard Wagner viewed dance as an essential element of art, though he used it sparingly in his operas.
The hill is greener
Live recordings of Hans Knappertsbusch conducting Parsifal seem to proliferate like stairways in M.C. Escher prints.
After dark
The Canadian Robert Carsen would appear to love the theater to the point of fixation.
“What gets me…!”
What gets me, La Cieca snaps, is not so much that Levine bit off more than he could chew, because that’s old news.
Battle of the network tsars
For all their orchestral and vocal attractions, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s 15 operas are rarities in the West.
Flame war
The role debut of a world-class singer is always a time of great anticipation, hopefully to be followed by celebration, if not unbridled jubilation.
On wings of Sondra
Sondra Radvanovsky lent her luminous voice to Chamberfest for what was an unexpectedly unique recital.
Calpesta il mio cadavere!
This week, Our Own Jungfer Marianne Leizmetzerin turns her vigilant ears to the recent past to take in a performance of Il trovatore featuring Anna Netrebko and Plácido Domingo.
Belief in a higher power
The behavioral phenomenon of limerence has been described as “an involuntary potentially inspiring state of adoration and attachment to a limerent object involving intrusive and obsessive thoughts, feelings and behaviors from euphoria to despair, contingent on perceived emotional reciprocation.”
Ring à la russe
Wagner is becoming an important calling card for Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theatre.
Wholly Grail
Certain opera productions become the stuff of legend as much for the circumstances surrounding the performance as for the musical results.
Lulu (some)
Daniel Barenboim does not want to conduct Berg’s Lulu. Or so it seems.
Behind the red curtain
It was indeed a curious sensation making a late morning trek to East 59th Street, a block devoted to showro0ms for bizarre upscale furniture and lighting fixtures, and then to enter a boutique cinema specializing in Hindi films (the big coming attraction right now is Desi Boyz) — and all this before sitting down in […]
Mirror, mirror
La Cieca is just back from the HD of Don Giovanni from La Scala: excellent singing through the whole cast, strong conducting (if tending to the slow side) by Daniel Barenboim, and a smart, chic production from Robert Carsen that frankly makes Michael Grandage look like an utter bumpkin. The presentation will repeat here in […]
Master singer
In the liner notes to his new Wagner CD, Rene Pape opines that performing the master’s work isn’t terribly different than performing Mozart. Both composers require singers to sustain a melodic line, manipulate vowels at the right moments and deploy dynamic gradations for dramatic effect. Call it German bel canto or natural speech, just don’t […]
She’s still here
The setting is Salzburg, September of 2009. Anna Netrebko and Daniel Barenboim partnered for a recital with lofty aspirations and difficult works mere months after her unfortunate Lucia at the Met. Thanks to the foresight to record this evening, we now have a record of a great night – hopefully a turning point – in […]
La Scala Upper West
Everything I need to know about Bizet I learned at a Judy Chicago exhibit in 1996. Brutality against women is pervasive, and society is culpable by permitting it. Such grievances were aired at the expense of the composer’s chef d’oeuvre Carmen yesterday at La Scala’s Gala opening, viewed dal vivo at Symphony Space on 95th and Broadway.
Txtng the La Scala season premiere
Nuns, Doppelgängers, ball gags, “third arms“? Your own Squirrel is on the scene at Symphony Space offering his eyewitness account of the prima of Carmen (as seen on HD, liveish from Milan). Up-to-the-minute coverage follows the jump.
Entry of the God into Valhalla
A new CD set of Der Ring des Nibelungen, recorded live at the Bayreuth Festival in 2008, is slim on superstar casting, but basks in the reflected glory of conductor Christian Thielemann, a controversial artist with a passionate following. So how does the music measure up?
the day after the night
Our Own Gualtier Maldè reports: The Met’s orchestra and audience have found a new conductor to love: Daniel Barenboim.  The debutante conductor got a huge ovation before he even lifted his baton. Lots of applause for Danny B. all night from an adoring audience including a generous amount at his final bow. There was lots of touchy feely […]
Zaubernacht
A YouTuber new to La Cieca by the name of Promptersbox, has managed to make available the entire La Scala Tristan und Isolde. Your doyenne is not sure exactly where the intense magic in this performance comes from: Patrice Chéreau, Daniel Barenboim or Waltraud Meier. But magic it is!
Barenboim sings again!
Introducting a new guest critic, Giulia Grisi, who blogs regularly for “Il Corriere della Grisi.” La Scala’s 2007-8 opera season opened last night (December 7) with a new production of Tristan und Isolde. The Milanese theatre hadn’t presented Wagner’s masterpiece since 1978, when Carlos Kleiber‘s masterful interpretation became an instant classic, in spite of a […]