The host of the Metropolitan Opera’s Saturday Afternoon Radio Broadcasts and longtime public radio personality died today of complications from ovarian cancer. She was 58.
The Metropolitan Opera yesterday afternoon was an uncommonly cozy place, as the auditorium was packed to the rafters with friends and family members of the nine National Council Audition Finalists.
At what moment does a “rising star” become simply a “star”?
2014 was a year of lemons into lemonade.
One of the major complaints about the five year casting system (as well as the shared productions by different companies) is that operatic events are rarely surprises anymore.
The Metropolitan Opera desperately needed a new production of Le nozze di Figaro.
Wednesday brought the Met’s “real” season opener, an indelible, indispensable night at the opera: a starry revival of Verdi’s Macbeth crowned by Anna Netrebko’s demented Lady.
This past week of contract negotiations at the Metropolitan Opera has been notable for the absence of any new PowerPoint presentations or fustian proclamations.
The MET Orchestra musicians who, we are assured, ‘love the Metropolitan Opera and want it to succeed” have revised their PPT deck to identify what they claim is an additional $1.2 million in cost savings to the company…
La Cieca has come into possession of an interesting presentation, with fonts and everything, from Local 802, American Federation of Musicians, and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, outlining their solution for the current financial crisis at the Metropolitan Opera.
In response to repeated urging by La Cieca, Our Own Dawn Fatale has contributed a “to do” list for the benefit of Met management, assuming the company makes it out of this summer alive.
It’s time to bring out the canard again, this time a whole row of them in fact.
AGMA’s Alan Gordon cries “Havoc!” and lets slip the dogs of war, and by “dogs” La Cieca means “artist managers.” It’s another email, leaked after the jump.
The battle of the management-labor emails continues with Alan Gordon demanding Peter Gelb fire his driver.
Alan Gordon, embedded journalist, reports from inside the first AGMA/Met negotiation session.
Coming as Peter Gelb did from the music industry, opera lovers hoped that he would display a more distinctive knack for casting and an improved talent pipeline than Joe Volpe offered during the waning years of his tenure.
Short answer: yes. But let’s begin by dismissing the a blatant canard. One thing that the Metropolitan Opera does not need to do is to scale back the number of performances in a season.
The Met’s financial challenges are not meteorological, demographic, or cyclical; they are structural.
parterre box has obtained a memo sent to artists’ managers in which AGMA Executive Director Alan Gordon warns singers contracted to sing at the Met in the 2014-2105 season that due to unpromising developments in upcoming labor negotiations the company may be dark for part or all of the season.
Twenty years ago, a sad and lonely gay man sat down with a pair of scissors and a glue stick and said, “I think I’ll make a magazine.”
Before you depart the Met at the end of this season, Ms. Billinghurst, you have the chance to do some good for both the Met audience and James Levine.
Last night, La Cieca finally got around to watching that documentary about the rocky road to the new Ring at the Met, and she has a thought or two about this whole brouhaha.
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.
Since 2010 I’ve been reading nothing but horror being heaped upon the Met’s new Ring. It’s been like a cross between a cruise ship size buffet spread of internet snarking and a slasher film re-cast with music critics.
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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