A dream walking
The hostile reaction to the Mary Zimmerman production of La sonnambula was well documented after the premiere in 2009.
Natalie Dessay
78 pieces since 2006 — in 15 roles, at 9 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
78
pieces
15
roles
9
companies
21
years
By role
Role Amina
Happy endings
Let me take you back, Parterreians, to the spring of 2009. Shortly before the Met’s new La sonnambula opened, murmurings began to be heard, rumors began to circulate. After the open dress rehearsal, reports were filed as opera fans looked on in horror. At the première, a shell-shocked audience rained down boos on the production […]
i wake up screaming
[Our Own Gualtier Malde (along with a few thousand other people) attended the public dress rehearsal of the Met’s new production of La sonnambula this morning. Here is his report.] Innocence, rustic naiveté and virginity just don’t get no respect no more. I should know, I grew up way out in central New Jersey and […]
Role Antonia
All dolled up
When my editor suggested to me a round-up of my favorite recordings of Jacques Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann I was très, très, intrigued.
Role Ariadne
The favorite
Gabriela Benacková, one of Trove Thursday’s favorite sopranos, turns 75 tomorrow, so we celebrate with two rare complete Verdi portrayals.
Role Aspasia
Mithridates is dead
Trove Thursday marks Mozart’s 264th birthday on Sunday with the 14-year-old’s remarkable opera seria Mitridate, Re di Ponto .
Role Cleopatra
Pyramid scheme
Giulio Cesare at the Met proved an evening that added up to much more than the sum of its uneven parts.
Carry on Cleo
Natalie Dessay coyly bares a breast on the cover of Virgin Classics’ new Giulio Cesare.
Role Eurydice
A Fly in Her Ear
Opera and comedy can be a very awkward match. Despite the number of comic operas in the standard rep, most opera fans don’t seek out a local production of, say, Die Entführung aus dem Serail because they need a giggle and 30 Rock is a repeat that night. And so the 1997 Opéra National de […]
Role Fosca
Role Lucia
A favorite Donizetti performance from Armerjacquino
Well, it’s a clip from Mary Zimmermann‘s production of Lucia di Lammermoor… wait, wait, come back!
By Armerjacquino
91 comments
Gentleman prefers brunettes
It’s no easy easy task to “re-review” one of the most discussed and scrutinized opera productions of the last few years. Mary Zimmerman’s mise-en-scène of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor has been extensively examined since it was chosen to inaugurate the 2007/08 season of the Metropolitan Opera, provoking very mixed reactions both from the professional critics […]
Does a big voice need defending?
Our Own Little Stevie reflects on the Met’s new Macbeth. I’d like to admit a guilty pleasure of mine: I’ve secretly been waiting with a lot of anticipation for Maria Guleghina to sing in Macbeth and Norma this year. I have not told this to many people because it seems that the common expectation has […]
Someone else does the heavy lifting for a change
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 […]
"She runs upstage screaming and then sits on the stairs laughing maniacally" is the new "weeping bitterly, she consents to the horrible bargain"
That’s a bit of the description of Natalie Dessay‘s Lucia mad scene, as dress-rehearsed at the Met earlier today and reported by La Cieca’s spy. The complete report (including SPOILERS!) follows: I’m sure some people will be up in arms over the production. It is set in the mid-19th century. The costumes are decent. Mariusz […]
Role Madame Emery
Chantons sous la pluie
Walking away from Theatre Châtelet this afternoon, I felt as though my relationship with France and its notoriously perplexing people and culture had at long last reached some degree of depth.
Role Marie
‘fille’ a song coming on
[Our Own Gualtier Maldè reports from this afternoon’s dress rehearsal of La Fille du Régiment] The Met has another hit on its hands — though not a totally new one, this production and cast already having triumphed at Covent Garden and the Vienna Staatsoper. Laurent Pelly (who vies with Davide Alagna and Mark Streshinsky as […]
Role Mrs Lovett
Prêtre a manger
parterre box serves up an amuse-bouche of Natalie Dessay as Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd in Strasbourg!
Role Olympia
‘Tale’ of the unexpected
I am happy to finally add Les contes d’Hoffmann to the playlist in a Salzburg performance from 2003 with Neil Shicoff in one of his parade roles.
Role Rose Hovick
I want you to enter the holy of holies
Das Wunder der Heliane fuses sex with the sacred at a simmering performance at the Opéra National du Rhin.
Role Violetta
A favorite Verdi performance from Lou Ann Darras
I have very few opportunities to see real-life opera divas, but when Natalie Dessay chose to debut her first Traviata at Santa Fe, there was no way I was going to miss it.
By Lou Ann Darras
32 comments
Three faces of Violetta
Christopher Corwin surveys the three Traviata casts — led by Lisette Oropesa, Rosa Feola, and Ermonela Jaho — at the Met this spring.
Against the grain
I wondered if there truly is a future for opera other than as an overpriced museum piece for an aging audience who likes their sets lavish, their productions non-challenging, and their singers telegenic.
L’art du hipster
The reinvention of Verdi’s masterpiece, La Traviata, as sung by world-famous French coloratura soprano Natalie Dessay, is the subject of Philippe Béziat’s thrilling new movie.
Blonde item
This year, I attended one of Natalie Dessay‘s only fully-sung Traviatas at the Met.
Red dress diaries
La Cieca has just received a complete report from her spy at today’s open dress rehearsal of La traviata at the Met.
Role Zerbinetta
Desert island DVD
This is a performance I never thought I’d see. This 2003 Met performance of Ariadne auf Naxos was filmed, but got tied up in some kind of (legal?) dispute and never televised, and I had long written it off as being tucked away in a vault, doomed to be “the lost telecast.” So it is […]
I’ll take the fall
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).
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
