Member of the cher public ellerveira informs La Cieca: Juan Diego Florez has given several very fascinating interviews to the Spanish media while in Madrid for his two recitals that will replace his canceled performance of Rigoletto. He explained in some detail why he stopped singing Rigoletto (tessitura too low for his voice and if…
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
Francesca Zambello (center), universally critically slammed for her production of The Little Mermaid, has been tapped as director of yet another musical, as if Little House on the Prairie and Rebecca are not enough to keep her busy. She’s helming First Wives’ Club for a July opening at the Old Globe Theatre in Baltimore San…
La Cieca’s band of elfin techies are moving parterre.com to a new hosting server. What that means to you, cher public, is that you may experience outages of posts, images or media content on this site for a few days. You’ve all been so swell for the last couple of weeks while we worked this…
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Our Own JJ directs dancers Michele and E.J. before Saturday night’s performance of “Sexy, Sassy and Starving” at Joe’s Pub. (Not pictured is Dorothy Bishop, who was busy singing…)
Your doyenne is back, cher public, and she missed you more than she can say. Thanks to so many of you who sent messages of support!
“As the East Village gentrifed over the past decade, gone are the punk-rock club, the dive bar, the crack den . . . the opera house.” Our Own JJ marks the finale of Amato Opera. [NYP]
… so good. Keep your fingers crossed, cher public, that this morning’s tweaks have ameloriated the recent unpleasantness. Meanwhile, JJ is off to hear Madame Vera.
La Cieca’s old, old, old friend Dorothy Bishop launches a revised and heavily retouched version of her show “Sexy, Sassy and Starving!” at Joe’s Pub here in NYC on Saturday, May 30 at 7:30 PM. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/Yr59Cke781M” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
La Cieca is sorry, sorry, sorry about the downtime on parterre.com. The hosting company blames wordpress, and wordpress blames the host, and La Cieca is very rattled right now. If you can hook La Cieca up with someone who knows about PHP and SQL databases, please email her at [email protected] . Thanks, folks.
Those tiny Czech flags served as red flags for the keen-eyed public, several of whom correctly surmised that last week’s Regie quiz was a production of Prodana nevesta. (The “Mrs. Slocombe from Are You Being Served?” character is Kecal the marriage broker, in this production sung by a bass in drag.) And what, my dears,…
La Cieca’s trying a new look for parterre.com, since she must confess that the light-on-dark format was beginning to get a little wearing on her aging eyes. Comments? Suggestions?
Cher public, La Cieca entreats you all to bear with her in these next few days as she tries to figure out what the hell is going wrong with WordPress and causing the site to be suspended every couple of days. In the meantime, some of the features (such as the “recent comments” section in…
[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/HaL0jnNgm4E” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] That goddess among divas, Madame Vera Galupe-Borszkh, indulges a whim (as divas have been known to do) and returns to grace the stage next week at Symphony Space. Those of you incapable of the hike up to 95th Street may take comfort in the DVD Vera: Life of a…
“Miss Susan Alexander, a pretty but hopelessly incompetent amateur, last night opened the new Chicago Opera House in a performance of… (I still can’t pronounce that name, Mr. Kane.) Her singing, happily, is no concern of this department. Of her acting, it is absolutely impossible to say anything except that it represents a new low,…
A little housekeeping on this lovely spring morning, cher public. Starting today, commenters will be required to log in to the site. Most of you are already signed up and logged in as it is, so this new condition will mostly apply to new visitors to parterre.com. The login will be helpful to La Cieca…
La Cieca usually goes pea-green with envy when some other opera blogress launches a successful promotion, but in this case she’s going to make an exception because this story has the happiest ending imaginable. As detailed by Anne Midgette today in the Washington Post, Priscilla Barrow, who has taught music in public schools for over…
La Cieca just listened to this new recording of Alcina starring Joyce DiDonato and Maite Beaumont. She’s not going to speak up immediately about her reactions, but will open the floor to discussion. (If you can’t see the amazon mp3 player above, please click here.)
Anna Netrebko was not pregnant as of this morning, according to Jeffrey D. Vanderveen, managing director of Universal Music Classical Artists Management, who broke the non-news to Opera Chic. La Cieca will continue to keep you updated on the state of the soprano’s gravidity as the situation develops.
Peter Mattei in Le nozze di Figaro. (La Cieca thinks the production is pretty cool too.) [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/rjEipadAxew” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
Earlier today Opera Chic reported on a still fairly vague rumor that Anna Netrebko is pregnant again. Here in New York the information is also pretty vague, but La Cieca has heard that Erwin Schrott (currently in Naples) is spilling spilled beans as proud papas will do. Whispers in New York indicate that the Met…
Too clever by half you are, méchant public: our most recent quiz revealed itself to you as Lohengrin far sooner than La Cieca had hoped. So, this week, something with a bit more visual flair:
La Cieca warns you, music writers, she is going to giggle like a madwoman you begin your article with the line “We owe Chicago Opera Theater tremendous thanks for dragging the smaller operas of Benjamin Britten out of the closet…” [Chicago Tribune]
This is why the YouTube was invented. Hell, this is why the universe was invented. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/CgSib1LVZHQ” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
STEMdiva status
Ahead of a special boozy, bawdy Valentine’s Day concert, artistic director of Opera Lafayette Patrick Quigley speaks with soprano Maya Kherani about her journey from MIT to rising American Baroque star.
A Baroque Valentine’s with Opera Lafayette | Feb | DC & NYC
Celebrate love in all its guises with tender ballads, amorous duets, cheeky verses, and bawdy drinking songs plus food, cocktails and wine.