Director of the Met and ENO Madama Butterfly (and librettist of the Met’s Osvaldo Golijovcommission) is dead at 54. Further details are not available at this time.
Our Own Sanford reports from this afternoon’s National Council Grand Finals Concert at the Met. First things first: No hunkentenors, but Edward Parks is a barihunk, and Christopher Magiera is almost a barihunk. Now to the important stuff. There were nine singers in the final, and I would say that 10 of them deserved to…
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.…
Cher public, La Cieca meant to turn in early tonight, but she got one of those bees in her bonnet. This particular specimen of Apis mellifera is the “debacle” (as La Cieca has been astonished to see it termed) of Anna Netrebko‘s Juliette last Saturday afternoon. Such harsh criticism La Cieca has rarely heard since…
A helpful reader has pointed La Cieca to an interview in the current Opera News, a publication she picks up all too infrequently, alas. But the chitchat between Brian Kellow and Francesca Zambello is just too delicious to ignore. Ms. Zambello is the director of Disney’s The Little Mermaid, a show that just last week…
“Legendary maestro Tullio Serafin once said that trying to perform Bellini’s Norma without a great soprano is as futile as attempting to cook risotto without rice. This month, the Metropolitan Opera experimented with such a recipe with less than palatable results.” Our Own JJ reviews Hasmik Papian‘s Druidess in Gay City News.
Our Own Gualtier Maldè reflects on Maria Guleghina’s first Met Norma. True confession: I love Maria Guleghina, I really, really love her. I know her flaws but her strengths are such that they sweep aside severe demerits that would consign any other artist to filth. Among contemporary singers she is one artist who thinks big,…
La Cieca was just wondering about something yesterday on opera-l, and doggone if Anne Midgette wasn’t wondering about the same thing today in the New York Times. (That woman haunts my dreams, I tell you. It’s like she’s inside my head. Now, where was I? Oh, yes…) The point that dear Anne and I (among…
Last night’s season premiere of Norma at the Met restored Bellini’s opera to musical and vocal distinction but the dramatic fire was burning only fitfully. Hasmik Papian is a hugely experienced Norma who some consider to be the best contemporary exponent of the role. But the key word here is contemporary not best. Her voice…
Yet another rehash of the great voice vs. waistline debate, this time in the Chicago Daily Herald. Nicole Cabell laments the scarcity of European gyms, while “hunken-tenor” Joseph Kaiser plants his feet firmly on both sides of the fence by declaring, “Essentially if you can be healthy about being healthy, that’s the balance to find…
“When the Met last offered Verdi’s Macbeth a quarter century ago, the New York Times slammed Sir Peter Hall‘s staging as ‘the worst new production to struggle onto the Metropolitan Opera’s stage in modern history’ and the opening night audience greeted the curtain calls with some of the loudest boos in the theater’s history. On…
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…
Our Own Gualtier Maldè reflects on last night’s Met Lucia:The Met has often been accused and rightly so of ignoring young talent and waiting too long to hire up-and-coming new stars while hanging on to declining old favorites well past their sell-by date. Occasionally a promising new talent from the Young Artists Program will blossom…
So, was last night a triumph or a disaster? Well, it was neither since the role of Radames doesn’t play to all of Roberto Alagna‘s strengths but it was a very fine showing by a distinctive and sensitive artist in a repertory that isn’t his natural metier. The evening’s biggest triumph was scored by old…
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…
A composer I know, a neighbor,once dropped the electrifying newsthat the great Anna Moffo has sung his songs,and telephones him every New Year’s. Whenever I see him on the street,scurrying along with music scoresclutched to his chest,I stop him to askif Miss Moffo, as I,in my utter adoration, like to call her,has phoned him yetto…
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…
Our new correspondent Miss Laura Hope Cruisey finishes her report from Santa Fe. Everywhere we look there is Nicole Cabell – so exotic! Wow! Very interesting looking woman; and her new arias CD is the most advertised classical record around, and it is getting good reviews. She was kind of a Mrs. Obama on stage…
La Cieca’s Gal-pal del Golden West, Laura Hope Cruisey, sounds off on Santa Fe, 2007. Can we talk like this? Has Carl Rove turned off the reel-to-reel, before he turned out the lights? Well, since the New York Times seemingly did not cover the Santa Fe Opera Festival 2007, somebody’s got to say what happened…
Actress, singer, arts advocate, socialite, TV personality (and New Orleans native) Kitty Carlisle Hart has died at the age of 96. La Carlisle made her Broadway debut in 1933 in the musical Champagne Sec (a version of Die Fledermaus), then went to Hollywood for a brief stay highlighted by her turn as “Rosa Castaldi” in…
La Cieca is no big believer in omens, but she must say that within a hour of Aprile Millo‘s final curtain call on the Met stage Saturday night, all hell broke loose over New York. Not exactly “stars with trains of fire and dews of blood/Disasters in the sun” but certainly a messy and unseasonable…
“At ‘Connect at the Met for Gay and Lesbian Singles,’ a social mixer at the Metropolitan Opera on February 2, prospective hookups sipped Champagne in between acts of Leos Janácek’s ‘Jenufa.’ This grim tragedy might seem unlikely to kindle thoughts of romance, but even those participants who failed to launch a relationship had the satisfaction…
“In Leonard Bernstein‘s clever one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti, the heroine describes a gaudy movie musical as so much ‘Technicolor twaddle.’ If Tan Dun‘s new work The First Emperor (heard at the Metropolitan Opera on December 29) can hardly be dismissed as twaddle, it never attains the epic status to which it aspires.” Our publisher…
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…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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