Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer‘s bubbly The Judgement of Paris brings a distinctly Californian terroir to operatic comedy.
With Cesare’s old-school rules of war set spinning by Cleopatra’s Bollywood-inspired manipulations, a Da Capo aria has never felt more dangerous
Some operas carry around the shadow of their most famous interpreters more than others.
A special program note for Saturday night’s performance of Matthew Aucoin’s new opera Eurydice pointed to a rare convergence of three MacArthur Grant fellows in its creation and staging.
Lyric Opera of Chicago resumed its season on Wednesday evening with the new-to-Chicago production of Puccini’s perennial audience pleaser La bohème.
The Stars of Lyric Opera weren’t under the stars last night, prevented by a persistent cloud bank, but they nonetheless provided a stirring evening of music in Chicago’s Millennium Park.
The tendency to rank—to create subjective lists of best or greatest, or to organize things in ascending or descending order—is a human compulsion.
There was a certain frisson in the air entering Chicago Lyric Opera last night, and not just in anticipation of attending the world premiere of a new work by Jimmy Lopez (music) and Nilo Cruz (libretto), Bel Canto.
The last day of December a parcel arrived in the mail containing an absolute delight: “Semiramide—La Signora Regale.” One of best vocal recordings of 2014, this sumptuous 2-CD set on Deutsche Harmonia Mundi features the marvelous Italian mezzo-soprano Anna Bonitatibus and includes 90 minutes of rarely-heard music written for the legendary Babylonian queen.
Almost exactly twenty years after her auspicious Metropolitan Opera debut as the Fiakermilli in Arabella and a year following what she has claims was her final appearance on the operatic stage, Natalie Dessay returned Sunday afternoon to Lincoln Center—to sing opera.
Christopher Alden‘s production of Handel’s Partenope is so erudite and theatrically audacious and also such a rollicking ride, it’s hard to believe it isn’t crap.
It appears that Mariame Clément’s conception of Don Pasquale is that the opera should be retitled Malatesta.
There is a truism that there are no small parts, only small singers. Last night’s Così fan tutte has made me consider another possible truism: there are no bad productions, only miscast productions.
While James Levine’s name might not immediately spring to mind when pondering the great Mozart conductors, he does have a long and distinguished career leading operas by the Austrian master.
Giulio Cesare at the Met proved an evening that added up to much more than the sum of its uneven parts.
I completely missed The Enchanted Island during the Met’s 2011-12 season, both in the house and in the HD presentation. Even on Sirius, I had only heard snippets of the performance.
Here’s the thing about puns, Betsy: summer going to enjoy them and summer not.
I could feel my face (to say nothing of my spirits) sink as I opened an envelope from La Cieca containing a new Decca CD
to review.
The New Year’s Eve gala at the Met ushering out 2011 was the world premiere of the much-anticipated mash-up The Enchanted Island AKA “baroque opera for those who hate (or at least don’t know) baroque opera.
After today’s Met dress rehearsal of The Enchanted Island, La Cieca’s spy (pictured) reports: “You would think that if they had the entire Baroque canon to mine, they would’ve chosen music that wasn’t slow, dull, and long. In Peter Gelb‘s opening remarks, he called it ‘the Met’s Baroque Coming Out party,’ which makes me think this entire endeavor was…
It is, as Noel Coward remarked, astonishing how potent cheap music is. According to Brockway and Weinstock’s World of Opera, Gounod’s Faust was performed, after a rather lackluster debut in 1859, a thousand times inParis at the Opera between 1869 and 1894—a gobsmacking average of once every nine days.
“Parade” is defined simply by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as “a pompous show.” Fitting enough, then, that the triple bill titled Parade: An Evening of French Music Theatre recorded at the Met on March 16, 2002 consists of Erik Satie’s ballet Parade, Francis Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias, and Maurice Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges. These…
Your feelings about the new Opus Arte DVD of Handel’s Acis and Galatea will have a lot to do with your tolerance for gentle whimsy. As a cultural consumer who tends to gravitate toward the more high-octane, Italianate drama of a Verdi overture or a Real Housewives of New Jersey hair-pull, I do my best…
Our JJ‘s review of the Met’s revival of Le nozze di Figaro didn’t make it into today’s New York Post for reasons that you should be able to figure out once you’ve read the piece. At the suggestion of his editor, La Cieca is publishing it here.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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