On this day in 1965 soprano Renata Scotto made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Cio-Cio San
In 1982 I saw Turandot at the San Francisco Opera, the year after I became an opera fan, and it was my first live opera.
At all of these vocal contests, including this one, I find myself fascinated and perplexed by the same question: What exactly are the judges looking for?
On this day in 1987 the Met raised the curtain on Franco Zeffirelli‘s production of Turandot.
On this day in 1979 the Metropolitan Opera presented a new production of Verdi’s Don Carlo.
While the Met reruns over-familiar HDs, Trove Thursday offers a Puccini rarity: Edgar, the composer’s second opera, starring Latonia Moore and Marcello Giordani.
Two of the leading postwar Czech sopranos appear together in Janacek’s Kát’a Kabanová when Trove Thursday presents Gabriela Benacková‘s gleaming heroine in her US debut relentlessly persecuted by Nadjezhda Kniplová’s implacable mother-in-law.
Sondra Radvanovsky returned for her 29th Met Aïda Thursday night (but only her second Aïda.)
The Eloquence label of Australia, the down under-arm of Decca and now by extension Deutsche Grammophon, seems to specialize in the re-release of “Auld Lang Syne” treats.
With Christmas Eve 2016 falling on a Saturday, the Met offers contrasting orchestral splendors at noon and 6 p.m.
On this, the occasion of her 37th birthday [see below], La Cieca is happy to repeat the story of how she came to be born (as first told in the pages of parterre box, issue #28.
La Cieca is sure that her cher public will not want to miss Sunday morning’s (4:30 AM) screening of the camp classic Yes, Giorgio. This 1982 crossover attempt by Luciano Pavarotti (from tenor to matinee idol) must have sounded like a good idea at the time, but, fortunately for music lovers, the film flopped mightily,…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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