Music video producer extraordinaire Wenarto is currently trying to get his invaluable collection of performances reinstated on YouTube following a terms of service contretemps. Pending when, as, and if the original site goes online again, Wenarto has created a new YouTube account highlighting his classical, operatic-themed and Izzycentric vids: 222Opera. Visit soon, cher public, and often!
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.
Rupert Christiansen writes a review that might be a rave, or, then again . . . In the small role of the minister Arbace, a confident young British tenor currently based in Hamburg suggested that he is ready to give Bostridge a run for his money: Benjamin Hulett, clearly a name to watch out for.
Sometimes one can recognize a great artist in only one word of operatic text. This, however, is not one of those times. Context is provided after the jump.
From an email promo for Washington National Opera’s current production of Elektra: See Susan Bullock and Christine Goerke Sing Elektra! Washington National Opera stars Susan Bullock and Christine Goerke are featured in these extended excerpts and interviews from a recent production of Strauss’ Elektra in Florence, Italy, directed by Robert Carsen and conducted by Seiji…
La Cieca’s cher public — and music lovers around the world — won’t have Bernard Holland to kick around any more. The veteran classical music reviewer is leaving the New York TImes after 27 years, though to us who read him regularly it has easily seemed twice that. Holland is one of about 85 NYT newsroom…
[This article originally appeared in the print zine precursor to this site, one of a series of surveys of live recordings by critic Leila de Lakmé.] Leyla Gencer. The very name is exotic. She was an artist of Turkish ancestry who, during the 1950s and 60s, held her own despite the presence of Maria Callas,…
Another “Name that Regie” quiz for you, cher public. Remember, if you have seen this production (or know the photos), don’t blurt out the answer — let others deduce it!
“La Diva Turca” died this morning in Milan. In tribute to the art of Leyla Gencer, here is the soprano in the final scenes of Bellini’s Norma at La Scala on January 13, 1965. She is joined in this performance by Bruno Prevedi (Pollione) and Nicola Zaccaria (Oroveso); Gianandrea Gavazzeni is the conductor. UPDATE: The…
Thanks to High C’s for this excellent topic suggestion.
La Cieca thanks cher Charles for sending this “funniest, most withering description of singers ever written” from James M. Cain’s Mildred Pierce.
La Cieca offers her own personal salute to a very special holiday with an edition of Unnatural Acts of Opera featuring Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia. In this legendary April 20, 1965 performance, the eponymous antiheroine is Montserrat Caballé. Lucrezia Borgia (Prologue)
“Houston Grand Opera has appointed Laura Canning to run its young-artist training program, Houston Grand Opera Studio, effective Aug. 1. She follows General Director and CEO Anthony Freud from the Welsh National Opera, where she has been artistic administrator for the last ten years.” [via musicalamerica.com]Â
A very young Anna Moffo sings La sonnambula. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/XuC25v_tzOA” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
First the bad news, or anyway the bad news for us New Yorkers. Why the hell should Seattle Opera get Mariusz Kwiecien in Puritani, whereas we get — whatever his name was? Now the good news, though Seattle may think otherwise: Nick Scholl is moving to New York! (The photo’s a detail of an image…
Conductor Franz Welser-Moest (not pictured) has backed out of two performances of Die Fledermaus at the Zurich Opera, complaining that he was “unhappy” with the staging by Michael Sturminger. One innovation in this production is the inclusion of several vampires among Orlovsky’s retinue, which of course means that good old Frosch has lots of funny…
The Royal Opera House (you know, that place with the naked buskecutioner) is looking for “budding” filmmakers to produce a 40 second long version of Romeo and Juliet. The company asks for the finished featurettes to be uploaded to the Royal Opera’s YouTube site, which is just so Web 2.0 La Cieca can hardly stand…
Obviously the snippet of Birgit Nilsson‘s singing in the Curse Quiz does not represent the great dramatic soprano at her considerable best, since it’s taken from a post-retirement gala performance. Here’s Nilsson’s Isolde at her peak in one of La Cieca’s very favorite YouTube clips, from a 1967 telecast. (It’s been posted here before, but…
La Cieca presents, in traditional YouTube format, the shocking solution to the Mystery of Isolde’s Curse. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/3StsbgcqbUE” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] Congratulations to Christian Ocier who recognized all 14 voices almost immediately and so is the winner of the amazon.com gift card. And thanks to all of you, cher public, for playing!
No fooling the cher public this time around: most of you guessed easily that the depicted production was Die Zauberflöte, as staged in the Bundestag subway station in Berlin. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/Lf2RNksObiw” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
I thought that it would be fun to tell you about a little concert last Sunday here in Montréal, with Renée Fleming, Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato and Matthew Polenzani. It was actually the first time that I have heard any of them in the flesh, so I was most curious to see if the voices…
The American Opera Theater makes its New York debut this weekend at BAM with Charpentier’s remarkable 1688 opera David et Jonathas, featuring the Ignoti Dei period orchestra conducted by Timothy Nelson and joined by the Chamber Singers of Virginia Tech. Per the America Opera Theater’s press release, “David et Jonathas explores the relationship between three…
[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/VX27o382fYs” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
Has it really been nearly two months since our last “serious” vocal identification quiz? (By “serious,” La Cieca means of course not only for glory but for the coveted amazon.com gift card!) So, while we still have our most recent podcast of Tristan und Isolde on the brain, you clever public can try your skill…
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.
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.