“The chief judge of the federal appeals court in California, Alex Kozinski, has contributed to a Web site that featured sexually explicit materials …. [including] a photograph of naked women painted to look like cows. . .” [via NYT] Â
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.
La Cieca was reading a website the other day. It’s all about civilization or something, a nutty kind of a website. Do you know that the guy said that downloaded media is going to take the place of CDs and DVDs? Shoving her inner Jean Harlow back into her unconscious for a moment, La Cieca…
… for (as the saying goes) “that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.” Well, when La Cieca reflects upon where she’s going to spend the rest of her life, the first place she turns to is Bradley Wilber‘s MetManiac. So you can imagine your doyenne’s deep relief…
In her never-ceasing quest to keep her cher public violently engaged in the operatic discussion process, La Cieca presents a couple of snippets from a recent opera performance at Covent Garden. The artist in question is heard in moments representing (your doyenne is informed) his worst and best singing of the evening.
The Mary Garden of YouTube is back, and better than ever: [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/PN3e6_nuORI” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] Â
La Cieca thanks a particularly loyal member of the cher public for pointing out the most recent bit of hard-hitting arts coverage in the Wall Street Journal, as copied and pasted by that hardest of all arts hitters, Terry Teachout. La Cieca says “copied and pasted” because in this piece Teachout manages to blather on…
New York City Opera has commissioned American composer Charles Wuorinen to write an opera based on “Brokeback Mountain,” a love story about two U.S. ranch-hands that won three Oscars when it was turned into a movie. The opera house’s spokesman Gerard Mortier said in a statement on Sunday that Wuorinen had accepted an invitation to…
Our most recent Regie puzzler was telecast tonight, but La Cieca thinks her cher public will need no more than a sound clip and a review from the production to make the identity of the work plain: Friedrichstadtpalast meets Christopher Street Day: Alles, was hier nicht glitzert, ist nackte Haut. Otto Pichler hat supersexy Choreografien für die durchtrainierten Körper…
New York-centric as she is, La Cieca cannot help but sulk when she hears that the Met is in line for Nicholas Hynter‘s “rather limited” staging of Don Carlo that opened last night at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.Â
Since French Grand Opera won the poll, La Cieca will show a little extra love for dear old Richard Strauss in the coming weeks. How better to start the alternative festivities than with a clip from Die Frau ohne Schatten featuring the legendary teaming of Inge Borkh, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Martha Mödl and Ingrid Bjoner? [kml_flashembed…
The polls are closed and the results are in: the winner of this year’s Unnatural Acts of Opera Summer Festival is French Grand Opera. To kick off the festival we have that most grand of all grand operas, Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots. Les Huguenots, Act One Raoul de Nangis – Marcello Giordani Valentine – Annalisa Raspaglosi…
It took 60 guesses and a hint or two, but one of the cher public did indeed guess the opera depicted in the previous Regiequiz. Congratulations to mafketis, who somehow managed to see Il trovatore lurking behind the Hercule Poirot drag. The production of the Verdi warhorse was directed by Philipp Kochheim for the Staatstheater…
A featurette that just mysteriously appeared in La Cieca’s inbox. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/kQqPauyGiVU” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
Those of you who who worry that the New York City Opera gets less than favorable coverage in the New York Times may now cease and desist your fretting. Gérard Mortier hasn’t even come yet, but Tony Tommasini is already licking his lips at the prospect of all that “brilliant, unabashedly provocative” Belgian goodness: As someone who has…
… to describe this video which, frankly, makes Wenarto‘s oeuvre look like Dirty Harry. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/MCaLDvdsKSs” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
The first two days of polling, 555 of you voted for your choice for the theme of this summer’s Unnatural Acts of Opera Festival. The result: a dead heat at 28% each between the two leading contenders Now comes the runoff, with you, cher public, making the final choice. The polls close Thursday at noon,…
Verdi’s La Traviata opens the season and will run July 18 through August 25. Arguably Verdi’s most popular work, it returns to the Glimmerglass Opera stage after 20 years in a new production directed by Jonathan Miller Yes, that’s right, the oft-retired Dr. Miller has been dragged kicking and screaming into the opera arena yet…
As our dear Krunoslav hinted so wittily, our previous Regiequiz depicted a production of Die Bassariden. La Cieca reminds all her cher public that, as always with these little quizzes, please do not blurt out the answer if you actually have seen (or otherwise recognize) the production. The point of the game is to guess…
Hunks in skimpy loincloths have long been a feature of productions of twentieth century opera, especially during the Christopher Keene era at New York City Opera. But you don’t often get to see much homoerotic action in bel canto works like Norma, more’s the pity. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/sFdrWy8TzSQ” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] [via Barihunks]
As everyone knows, practically nobody reads the Saturday edition of the New York Times even during the winter, much less on the first weekend of the summer when everyone who might be interested in giving money to an opera company is on their way to the Hamptons. So it comes as no surprise that it…
Prince of Puppyliciousness Juan Diego Flórez goes classic this afternoon for Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice broadcast live from Madrid at 2:00 PM EDT. Soprano Nicole Cabell is Eurydice and Jesus López Cobos conducts. To hear the broadcast, open the Radio Nacional de España player.
Not Tosca, of course, cher public — La Cieca could never say that about her dear, dear Tosca. But it does seem both shabby and shocking that the combined forces of The New York Philharmonic and Charles Zachary Bornstein, the Philharmonic’s Leonard Bernstein Scholar-in-Residence would not at the very least ask for a retake of…
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”…
The opera will be called Le convenienze ed incovenienze terrestriali. The first act aria will begin “Your tiny globe is frozen; let me warm it with my own.” More jokes to follow — cher public, don’t be shy.
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.