“In response to the recession, the Metropolitan Opera’s Board of Directors has decided to subsidize some of the best seats for weekend evening performances for the duration of the opera season. Approximately 16,000 prime seats in the Orchestra and Grand Tier, ranging in price from $295 to $140, will be available for $25 through a…
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.
According to the Met’s website, Gary Lehman is singing Tristan in tomorrow’s broadcast. At this rate, he’s going to end up one of the most recorded Heldentenors in history!
Doyenne of operatic tradition Montserrat Caballé offers her opinions on the art of her compatriot Calixto Bieito. (And what a very fair and balanced attitude the lady has!) [kml_flashembed movie=”http://de.youtube.com/v/IzYXu68wKfo” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] And La Cieca herself heard from an old. old, old friend who has sung a leading role in one of Bieito’s…
[probably NSFW!] [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/tVOvQuy2IIk” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
The very first issue of parterre box (the queer opera zine) was published on December 3, 1993, the 70th anniversary of the of birth Maria Callas. And so that must mean that parterre box is exactly 15 years old today! To kick off what La Cieca devoutly hopes will be festivities, here is an interview…
Gary Lehman sings Tristan tonight at the Met, replacing the ailing Peter Seiffert.
A loyal reader reports seeing this blurb in the “normally staid” program book of the Los Angeles Opera: THE FLY BREAKS UNIQUE RECORD House management at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion reports that the lobby staff regularly sold out of binoculars for every performance of The Fly. Sales were reported to be especially brisk after the…
Some disturbing speculations from a reader in Vienna: Just in case you are one of those opera lovers who believe that Deborah Voigt has one of the greatest voices ever, don’t read any further and press “delete”. I just heard her Salome at the Vienna Staatsoper. It was a disaster. The audience booed her ferociously,…
The genre-defying art of Florence Foster Jenkins is reborn in her namesake, Katherine. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/XFVhHL75PQg” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
For those of you who are perhaps still wondering how (or whether) Medea ends. Medea, Acts 2 and 3
Our Own Gualtier Maldè reports: The Met’s orchestra and audience have found a new conductor to love: Daniel Barenboim.  The debutante conductor got a huge ovation before he even lifted his baton. Lots of applause for Danny B. all night from an adoring audience including a generous amount at his final bow. There was lots of touchy feely…
La Cieca thanks all of you for joining her for tonight’s chat! If you enjoyed tonight’s event, please drop by La Cieca’s Holiday Store.
Some of you cher public will no doubt see the pendulum as swinging too far in the other direction, but La Cieca finds this particularly convincing and exciting deptiction of the relationship between Don Giovanni and Leporello a refreshing change of pace after the listless staging of Mozart’s masterpiece currently in the Met’s repertory. The…
Well, the first thing La Cieca will say about the Met’s 125th Anniversary Gala is that for all its sprawling splendor it doesn’t look quite what you’d call entertaining. Or rather let’s say it looks as if it won’t sound very entertaining. The visual element — you know, computer-animated Marc Chagall murals and Waltraud Meier…
Just announced: Gerard Mortier has accepted the job of artistic director Madrid’s Teatro Real, beginning in 2010. [via AP]
Lord help the Mister who does fact-checking for the Times arts section! A correction published today thoroughly dispels all those rumors about  Lisa and Pauline, as seen in the Met’s current revival of The Queen of Spades. “They are friends, not sisters,” the correction helpfully informs us, and La Cieca will add that other than that one…
La Cieca hears that the “TBA” Donna Elvira at the Met for the December run of performances will be Dorothea Röschmann (left) previously heard at the house as Susanna, Pamina and Ilia. She replaces the previously announced Petra Maria Schnitzer (not pictured).Â
Not a Regie quiz, but worthy of note for the “what were they thinking” factor. Here’s a production of Otello directed by the usually visually acute Paul Curran. So why was costumer Paul Edwards allowed to get up the principal artists like they’re en route to a Cypriot fancy dress party? From left to right,…
As of this writing, Ben Heppner is still scheduled to go on tonight in the Met’s Queen of Spades, an event advertised on the company’s site with, under the circumstances, a rather unfortunate tag line:
In case you missed Friday night’s debacle.
The solution to our most recent Regie quiz? Seeing is believing! Download Yes, that’s right, the opera was again Aida! Now for this week’s Regie puzzler, which La Cieca promises is not going to be a Verdi opera set in ancient Egypt!
La Cieca has just about given up on the New York Times so far as accuracy goes, but it still rankles when a thoroughly disproven urban legend is casually quoted as factual truth. In a review of a novel called Winnie and Wolf, critic Patrick McGrath repeats the canard that Winifred Wagner supplied the paper…
La Cieca is always delighted to hear the merest whisper of a rumor that her old, old, old friend Madame Vera Galupe-Borszkh has been encouraged to grace the lyric stage yet once more. Therefore it is with the almost unutterable joy that your doynne notes that “La Dementia” will sing again in 2009 as a…
A tipster writes: Word is: The artistic administraion of the Met, always concerned about maintaining the highest possible levels of intenational artistic experience for their paying audience, are allowing Marcello Giordani to decide, after his Berlioz matinee, whether or not he wants sing the 8pm Butterfly.
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.