Safe passage
A Met HD cinema broadcast of Puccini’s Tosca on Saturday, 27 January, concluded the first run of a production marked by upheaval in the ten months between its announcement and its New Year’s Eve premiere.
Vittorio Grigolo
42 pieces since 2007 — in 14 roles, at 6 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
42
pieces
14
roles
6
companies
20
years
By role
Role Cavaradossi
E avanti a lui russava tutta Roma
The Met got exactly what it asked for: a safely opulent, resolutely unchallenging Tosca that was far from shabby or little but couldn’t have been less shocking
Role Duke
A view to a kill
You’d want to expect that every Met retread would draw the same curiosity, the same large crowds, to Lincoln Center.
Role Duke of Mantua
Traveling music
Andrea Andermann is the veteran film producer who had the notion to assemble top-flight talent from the worlds of music and cinema for a generously funded film of Tosca.
drammy per musica
New Kid on the Plaza Drammy writes: April 9, 2009. A traditional Otto Schenk production featuring Diana Damrau as Gilda and who cares but.. Frizza conducting, Viktoria Vizin as Maddalena, Calleja as the Duke, Frontali as Rigoletto, Aceto as Sparafucile. Stellar performances from the entire cast, excepting poor Mr Frontali. The set was phenomenal – […]
Role Edgardo
Madness on the moors!
The new cast at the Met suggested an alliterative retitling of Lucia di Lammermoor was needed—perhaps Lost Loonies in Love or its Italian equivalent?
Italian dressing
Lucia di Lammermoor, a bloody story of a young woman’s mental degeneracy amidst feuding families, remains Donizetti’s most popular exploration of the landscape and culture of Britain.
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 […]
Role Faust
Best laid chats
Reflecting my new mantra — “and would have gone on longer, had he not died” – here is The Curate’s Egg edition of the Saturday breakdown.
Role Gennaro
lucrezia, gorgeous
A new spy debuts in La Cieca’s service, reporting from the first night of WNO’s Lucrezia Borgia: Overall, I thought the opera was worth the price of attendance. The costumes of the main characters looked like something from Star Trek. Renée Fleming‘s hair looked like Tina Turner circa 1984. Fleming was impressive, especially in many […]
Role Hoffmann
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.
Drunk history
Last night was my fourth or fifth wade into the slough of Bartlett Sher’s production of Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Met since its premiere in 2009.
Star and garters
No amount of scholarly diligence has kept Les contes d’Hoffmann from being the messiest of all standard-repertory messes.
Tales that witness madness
Jacques Offenbach’s Les contes d’Hoffmann has had a bumpy ride to its pride of position in the current French repertoire.
A wasted time
Vittorio Grigolo in the title role of the Met’s revival of Les Contes d’Hoffman is the opera version of the charming homeless drunk.
Role Nemorino
His cup runneth over
As portrayed by Vittorio Grigolo, Nemorino was a manic self-absorbed, probably bipolar, stalker who—against all odds and good sense—gets the poor girl.
Role Rodolfo
Must the winter come so soon?
On Tuesday we got one of the Met’s inveterate classics, which meant yet another opportunity to gaze upon the old accessories: Donkey cart! Teal shawl! Fugly plaid slacks!
Spring will be a little late this year
La bohème is such a popular romantic opera that hardly anyone ever notices that Mimì and Rodolfo undergo what in modern terms would be called speed dating.
Endless love
“So, how is this new Pavarotti?” or, “This young tenor, what’s his name, I saw him on the morning show, is he any good?” When people who have never set foot inside an opera house—and know Maria Callas chiefly as the woman Aristotle Onassis dumped for Jacqueline Kennedy—start asking me such questions, then I […]
Role Roméo
My Verona
It surprises even me how some operas have eluded me in live performance even after lo, these many years. One of them is Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.
A fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes
It’s not hard not to feel jaded about Romeo and Juliet.
Foolish love
The Met ushers out this wretched year and rings in the new with an elegant and effective new production of Charles Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.
Role Roméo; Cavaradossi
Fifty shades of gold
Anticipation of events like the Metropolitan Opera’s 50th Anniversary bash turns me back into the newly opera-soused kid who begged his parents to let him watch the highlights of the Bing Gala on the family color television.
Role Tenor soloist
Bowled over
I never thought I’d see the day when Giuseppe Verdi and Benjamin Britten would battle it out for musical superiority but that’s exactly what happened in Los Angeles this year.
Role Tony
West coast story
I fall on my knees before this new live recording
issued by the San Francisco Symphony.
Role Werther
Crazy in love
I am, perhaps instinctively, skeptical of those who commit suicide.