To be a poet is a condition
Are today’s stars enough to sustain Andrea Chénier?
Nicolas Joel
8 pieces since 2008 — at 2 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
8
pieces
2
companies
19
years
By company
Loving him isn’t the right thing to do
Matthew Travisano takes on Mimì’s Act III aria from La bohème — not that one, the other one — in the latest installment of the “Perspectives on an Aria” series
I’m a stranger here myself
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.
Dancing at the edge of the world
Puccini’s schmaltziest, most melodic, most dramatically limp, most cynical, most obscure mature work
Dance the night away
On this day in 2008 the Metropolitan Opera presented a gala new production of Puccini’s La rondine.
Old-fashioned wedding
If the Arthaus Musik release of Le nozze di Figaro from La Scala feels like a slouchy revival pulled haphazardly from the video vault, the singers are certainly not at fault. Ildebrando D’Arcangelo and Diana Damrau, starring as Figaro and Susanna, are bankable stars who live up to the hype. At the podium, Gérard Korsten […]
Lady in a cage
Sometimes it seems as though DVDs are released just for the sake of filling a hole in the catalogue. Considering the lack of anything truly distinctive in this 2007 production of Verdi’s La forza del destino from the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, that would certainly seem to be the case here. (If anyone is wondering, the […]
NYCO not technically dead yet
So, this is what La Cieca gathers in the way of hearsay and rumor about the “future” of the New York City Opera. According to an NYCO insider, in the wake of La Cieca’s speculation that Gérard Mortier might not be taking on the NYCO job after all, “total chaos ensued,” spurring an emergency meeting […]
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!
