they might be giants
A “lost” selection from a 1972 gala. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/2fBoaPF7F6U” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
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together again for the first time
Can it be that in mid-July we are already thinking about the last days of summer? Well, La Cieca is, especially since she’s just found out that Robert Wilson‘s Byrd Hoffman Watermill Foundation will offer the unlikely duo of Rufus Wainwright and Jessye Norman in a concert entitled “Last Song of Summer” on August 30. […]
“this doesn’t smell like come to me…”
At long last, scent-lovers who want a perfume container that looks like the powder room chez Alberto Vilar will get their wish. The packaging for “La Voce Renée Fleming” has been unveiled!
no geh friends
[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/3mmpcdNNMos” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] Thackeray Gnomey has already pointed out this video in the comments, but La Cieca feels with all her heart that it deserves a featured place on this site. Among the subtler pleasures of this cavalcade of visual filth: the expression of stoic acceptance on the face of Waltraud Meier. […]
scathing review bankrupts composer
British composer Keith Burstein, who ran up legal costs of £67,000 defending a test-case libel action, has been told he must declare bankruptcy if he wants to continue pursuing the case in a higher court. The libel complaint stems from critic Veronica Lee‘s review of Burstein’s opera, Manifest Destiny, performed at the Edinburgh Festival in August […]
the revolution was not televised
But what could be a more perfect salute to Bastille Day than this celebrated 1989 video of Jessye Norman festooned in the Tricouleur and belting out “La Marseillaise?” Â [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/1QQ2k3UpHwQ” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
regie for my closeup
Cher public, you very nearly let La Cieca down with your guesses on last week’s Regie quiz. Until neiln007 rode to the last-minute rescue, nobody recognized Les Troyens among the white pantsuits and grand pianos. (The production, by the way, is from Stuttgart and directed by Joachim Schlömer.) And now, let’s take a look at […]
she better work!
As if the aural presence of The Beautiful Voice were not enough to justify five-figure ticket prices, the Metropolitan Opera’s opening night on Monday, September 22 will feature four couture creations to bedeck Renée Fleming in her gala program. Fashion legends John Galliano, Christian Lacroix, and Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel will design costumes for the star soprano’s […]
mai mosca alla scena piu tragica fu
A thoughtful member of the cher public has forwarded La Cieca another photo of barihunk Daniel Okulitch as Seth Brundle in The Fly. Now, this one is somewhat more explicit than the previous image, so La Cieca has tactfully placed it after the jump.
friends of dorothy
Glimpsed (left to right) after the Sunday performance of “Viva la Diva”: dancer Ralph Coppola, eponymous diva Dorothy Bishop, audience member Jason Leggett, dancer Eric Thomas, Our Own JJ. “Viva la Diva” is held over for a final performance tonight at the Pillowfight Theatre Festival. Â
jimmy cancels tanglewood
According to boston.com, James Levine will miss the remainder of the season at Tanglewood in order to have a kidney removed. The maestro will require about six weeks of recuperation after the surgery. The Tanglewood season will continue as planned, with guest conductors taking over Levine’s eight scheduled dates.
“the beginning of my rebirth”
Glamazonian Grace Bumbry reveals her secret origin. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/9F-ewNUS6rU” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] More Bumbry palaver and some staged excerpts of her greatest roles (but aren’t they all?) may be found on Coloraturafan2‘s YouTube site.
parola perduta abbandonata
The Beautiful Voice is known for her improvisational skills both as an actress and as a musician (who can forget her “Over the Rainbow” or “O légère hirondelle?”) Now La Fleming has harnessed her spontaneity to create a variant text for her first public performance of a celebrated Puccini aria. Manon ho studiato UPDATE: The […]
Rock-a-bye your baby with a Regie melody
Our most recent Regiequiz was no match for the little grey cells of Monsieur RMP, who deduced right off that the opera in question was Il Turco in Italia. And now, let’s take a look at another opera, its identity perhaps obscured by modern costuming. Â
ministry of truth
If you take a look at the comments sections of recent posts, you will note that a number of off-topic personal attacks (and responses to attacks, and responses to responses) have gone down the oubliette. La Cieca entreats her cher public to stay on-topic and to refrain from personal attacks because she really doesn’t want […]
the long-awaited massacre
Finally, the closing acts of Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots are presented by your dilatory doyenne on Unnatural Acts of Opera. Les Huguenots Acts 4 and 5
the unmerry widow
It would be tempting to say that the Wagner dynasty has nothing on the Menotti family, except that it’s just not true. The generational intrigues of the descendants of the Meister (as detailed in Brigitte Haman’s Winifred Wagner: A Life at the Heart of Hitler’s Bayreuth), reflect the superhuman scale of Wagner’s musical vision. The […]
i dream too mouche
Naked barihunk (a phrase that will eventually become tautological, La Cieca predicts) Daniel Okulitch stars in The Fly, the new opera by Howard Shore and David Henry Hwang opening tonight at the Théâtre du Châtelet.
let george do it
According to a press release from the New York City Opera, George Manahan will continue there as Music Director through 2012. In the inaugural Gérard Mortier season beginning in the fall of 2009, Maestro Manahan will conduct performances of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress and Britten’s Death in Venice. Manahan is booked as well for Szymanowski’s […]
diva, revived
The cabaret show “Viva la Diva,” directed by Our Own JJ and starring Dorothy Bishop, has been booked for an additional performance this week as part of the Pillowfight Theatre Festival. The show goes on at 9:00 p.m. on July 3 at The Green Room at 45 Bleecker. Tickets are $25 at the door. Already […]
a regie, a bone and a hank of hair
Guesses poured in for our most recent Regie quiz, but correct reponses were few and far between. The opera is in fact Martin’s Una cosa rara, and (credit where credit is due) the handsome though bewildering photographs were by Ken Howard. A more familiar title graces the quiz this time around. The imagery, however, is […]
new doyenne in town
Members of the cher public indigenous to the District of Columbia and its environs will welcome Anne Midgette as music critic for the Washington Post, as leaked this morning on Ionarts. In fact, Midgett’s full-time appointment is good news on a national scale, given the media’s current scary cutbacks in arts coverage. The scribe’s current […]
defying gravidity
Pregnancy certainly seems to agree with Anna Netrebko! [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/TIWw1ls4QwY” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).