Incredible, but true, I Puritani had not been performed in Great Britain since 1887 when Glyndebourne decided to stage it in 1960 with the main intention to showcase Joan Sutherland, who had been catapulted to international superstardom one year earlier in the legendary Lucia di Lammermoor at Covent Garden. Furthermore, Vittorio Gui, who had already…
I saw the final dress rehearsal of Adriana Lecouvreur at the Royal Opera House on Monday this week, and I think I have never seen the place so crowded for such an event. No wonder, for here was a cast you might dream of, in a highly finished piece of work mounted by one of…
The annual Richard Tucker gala came and went at Avery Fisher Hall with the usual quota of gaffes, wardrobe malfunctions, no-shows, too-much-shows, substitutions and surprise guests (well, guest). And sandwiched between the routine, the egocentric and the just plain dull were moments of true dementia, the moments that we melomanes live and die for. Most…
This live CD of Wagner orchestral excerpts and the Wesendonck Lieder is noteworthy for the conducting of Franz Welser-Most and the truly remarkable playing of The Cleveland Orchestra. I have seldom heard an ensemble sound so beautiful on CD. The strings shimmer like satin, the reeds are clean and clear, the brass warm and burnished with…
Christof Loy’s highly controversial 2009 production of Berg’s Lulu for The Royal Opera House has been released on DVD (Opus Arte), with beautifully realized film direction by Robin Lough. Antonio Pappano and the Orchestra of The Royal Opera House lead an extraordinary cast of singing actors in plumbing the musical and psychological depths of this…
Your feelings about the new Opus Arte DVD of Handel’s Acis and Galatea will have a lot to do with your tolerance for gentle whimsy. As a cultural consumer who tends to gravitate toward the more high-octane, Italianate drama of a Verdi overture or a Real Housewives of New Jersey hair-pull, I do my best…
Adapting a novel, especially a well known novel like Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron, can be a herculean task. The two conflicting, almost mutually exclusive, forces at work are the desire to create a great work for the stage, while at the same time remaining true to all the nuanced characterizations and storylines present in…
Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center, celebrated mastermind of the financial turnarounds of the Royal Opera, American Ballet Theatre the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater, has some interesting advice for arts organizations in our current troubled times. His ideas take on a strong resonance, La Cieca thinks, when applied to our big New York opera…
Simply everyone chimes in today about Monday night’s Met in the Parks recital at Central Park SummerStage. JJ has one take, Anthony Tommasini quite another, and for depth of detail, you need look no further than Our Own Sanford:
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
Member of the cher public Max writes: Don’t know if you’ve gotten reports on this yet, but Jonas Kaufmann‘s Cavaradossi at the Royal Opera (May 23) was singing like I haven’t heard since young Domingo (only Domingo never had that kind of ease on top). You could feel the waves of sound from his “Vittoria”…
La Cieca has found a few fragments from last night’s performance of Tosca at the ROH — only about 15 minutes of music, but enough, perhaps, to give a hint of the suitability of Angela Gheorghiu for the title role. La Cieca’s take (based on an in-house mike, remember!) is that the Roman diva is…
Tell us: Filth or dementia?
Hasten thee to feed another quarter of conversation for The Talk of the Town!
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