UPDATE: Tonight’s performance of Simon Boccanegra at La Scala (featuring Placido Domingo) has been canceled because of a strike called by unions protesting the “decreto Bondi,” a measure to privatize all of Italy’s major opera houses and reduce salaries at these theaters across the board. Our Own Ercole Farnese reviewed yesterday’s news reports about this…
Our Own Gualtier Maldè (right) escaped today’s Armida dress rehearsal at the Met with his wits intact. He reports:
Everything I need to know about Bizet I learned at a Judy Chicago exhibit in 1996. Brutality against women is pervasive, and society is culpable by permitting it. Such grievances were aired at the expense of the composer’s chef d’oeuvre Carmen yesterday at La Scala’s Gala opening, viewed dal vivo at Symphony Space on 95th and Broadway.
Nuns, Doppelgängers, ball gags, “third arms“? Your own Squirrel is on the scene at Symphony Space offering his eyewitness account of the prima of Carmen (as seen on HD, liveish from Milan). Up-to-the-minute coverage follows the jump.
Vocal glamour in abundance highlighted the opening performance of LA Opera’s Il barbiere di Siviglia on November 29 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavillion, with much buzz attendant on the company debuts of Rossini experts Juan Diego Flórez and Joyce DiDonato. Adding excitement was the Figaro of Nathan Gunn, who played with Errol Flynn panache, and…
“Voglio essere giudicato per la musica e nient’altro che per la musica.” “I want to be judged for my music and nothing but my music.” This phrase, which Mascagni himself wrote to his publisher Sonzogno, is the key to understanding the very essence and existence of L’amico Fritz (1891). Cavalleria rusticana, Mascagni’s first performed opera,…
What impressed La Cieca at the Caramoor concert of Semiramide on Friday was not so much the quality of the performance (though that was on a solidly high level) but the magnificence of the work itself. This magnificence stands out now in even greater relief after the comparison with Les Huguenots later in the weekend.
Those of you cher public who ordered and enjoyed Decca’s bargain Wagner box may now be interested in a bargain Puccini edition offered by EMI. The set, Puccini: The Operas, retails for $59.98 (less than four bucks a disc) and includes complete performances of:Â
“La Diva Turca” died this morning in Milan. In tribute to the art of Leyla Gencer, here is the soprano in the final scenes of Bellini’s Norma at La Scala on January 13, 1965. She is joined in this performance by Bruno Prevedi (Pollione) and Nicola Zaccaria (Oroveso); Gianandrea Gavazzeni is the conductor. UPDATE: The…
Guest critic Niel Rishoi reviews the VAI DVD release of Lucia di Lammermoor. OK, this is IT. Barring the cuts, this is the Lucia of Gaetano Donizetti. Not that misguided travesty at the Met, not Natalie Dessay‘s vocally juddery overwoughtness. No schtick, no Carol Burnetting around. Just Donizetti and Cammarano’s Romantic drama, pure and simple.…
Over the years we have heard many different versions of Gluck’s Orphée. One can choose the Vienna version for castrato, which is shorter and simpler (or better: equally difficult, but in a less spectacular way), the Paris rewrite for tenor or the Berlioz reworking for the distinguished mezzo Pauline Viardot (Anne Sophie von Otter sang…
A YouTuber new to La Cieca by the name of Promptersbox, has managed to make available the entire La Scala Tristan und Isolde. Your doyenne is not sure exactly where the intense magic in this performance comes from: Patrice Chéreau, Daniel Barenboim or Waltraud Meier. But magic it is!
Introducting a new guest critic, Giulia Grisi, who blogs regularly for “Il Corriere della Grisi.” La Scala’s 2007-8 opera season opened last night (December 7) with a new production of Tristan und Isolde. The Milanese theatre hadn’t presented Wagner’s masterpiece since 1978, when Carlos Kleiber‘s masterful interpretation became an instant classic, in spite of a…
Currently on Unnatural Acts of Opera, the ravishing Loreley by Alfredo Catalani in a performance from La Scala in 1968. Heading the cast is perhaps the definitive “meteoric” diva, Elena Suliotis. La Cieca remembers as a tiny child seeing this late ’60s photo of La Suliotis and thinking that she had to be the most…
On a new episode of Unnatural Acts of Opera that can only be called fabulous, we hear the first act of Un ballo in maschera as it was performed at La Scala in April of 1956. Gianandrea Gavazzeni is the conductor, and even by the lofty standards of Unnatural Acts of Opera the cast is…
You may well be surprised to hear La Cieca say this, cher public, but she’s bellowing a lusty “brava” to none other than Renee Fleming. On yesterday’s matinee Met broadcast of Rigoletto, Fleming took on a role associated with Geraldine Farrar, that of intermission commentatress. One of the first questions she lobbed at Joseph Calleja…
First off, La Cieca should tell you that her producer/alter ego JJ will be heard this afternoon on WNYC’s talk show “Soundcheck” discussing (what else?) L’affaire Alagna. The program begins at 2:00 PM and JJ is scheduled to be heard in the final segment between 2:30 and 3:00. “Soundcheck” gained notoriety last month when uber-diva…
Well, it had to happen sooner or later, and so it did happen, sometime between last night and tonight. La Cieca has decided she’s taking Roberto Alagna‘s side in The Scandale. Yes, yes, La Cieca hears your gasps and snorts of disbelief and contempt, but you know, cher public, La Cieca is, deep in her…
Peter Gelb‘s new broom continues to sweep at the Met. Perhaps to make room for the Gheorghiu/Netrebko/Damrau generation, the incoming General Manager is buying out contracts. Two Met artists in particular are targeted, and, oddly enough, these two ladies have quite a bit in common. Both are 40-something light lyric sopranos, and they have three…
Did you know Unnatural Acts of Opera is the only all-opera podcast in the whole, uh, podosphere? Even better, this podcast features only live opera performances, preferably demented. Our opera this time is both live and demented, with even a soupcon of backstage drama to add an extra frisson. La Cieca presents the first act…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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