He who guesses first guesses best, as Ping teaches us: our most recent Regiequiz did indeed depict Mozart’s Idomeneo. Now, don’t everybody guess at once this time around!
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.
The legendary diva celebrates her 75th birthday today. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-2989150895689621204″ width=”400″ height=”326″ wmode=”transparent” /]
 Followers of trash TV will no doubt recognize the following clip from “Real Housewives of New York City,” in which big-boned socialite Alex and her gayish husband Simon prepare to attend opening night at the Metropolitan Opera … in a stretch limo …
La Cieca was disappointed to hear the news that the New York City Opera next season will present only a few concert performances. Well, in point of fact, she’s surprised that they’re performing at all, but the real problem is that she already had a mental picture of an NYCO Antony and Cleopatra starring Teddy…
Two of the cher public (thanks, Paul and Michael!) have tipped La Cieca to what may be the ne plus ultra of operatic Regie, a new production of Un ballo in maschera in Erfurt. According to an article in the Telegraph, This “different . . . provocative” staging of the Verdi warhorse sets the tale…
Fabio Armiliato takes a bis of “Ch’ella mi creda” during an April 8, 2008 performance of La fancuilla del West.
Okay, the Boheme was too easy. This opera might be a bit more challenging. Guesses? (PS — remember, cher public, if you recognize the production, shhh!)
“Qual petto percota non vegga il pugnal!
La Cieca has learned that there will be no Richard Tucker Award bestowed in 2008. This is only the third time in its 30 year history the Tucker Foundation has not granted this honor. The foundation will, however, give Richard Tucker Career Grant prizes to sopranos Susanna Phillips and Angela Meade and baritone Timothy Mix.…
La Cieca has just heard that that veteran thespian Marian Seldes will make her Metropolitan Opera debut on April 21 as the Duchess of Krakenthorp in the company’s new production of Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment, replacing Zoe Caldwell, who is ill. La Seldes will play the Duchess for the entire run of performances through…
In what will surely be a highlight of the 2008-2009 musical season here in Gotham, mean, moody, magnificent (and blogorific!) Aprile Millo is set to perform the title role in Cherubini’s Medée with Opera Orchestra of New York under the baton of Eve Queler. Other presentations in the concert company’s repertoire do not perhaps set…
So, what’s the opera? (If you can’t guess right away, La Cieca will add more photos.)
In all the publicity surrounding last week’s memorials to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a far more put-upon martyr has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media. Celebrated freedom fighter Franco Zeffirelli is making veiled suggestions (through a “friend”) that, should the Met mothball such “masterpieces” as his 20-year-old Tosca production, supporters of the octogenarian…
Congratulations to borkmann, Dr. Hoffmann, Micaëla, emiliadiLiverpool, rysanekfreak and Enrico who all came up with the solution to our most recent Regiequiz. The opera presented is Wagner’s Tannhäuser in a new production by Hans Neuenfels for the Aalto Musiktheater Essen.
La Cieca wants to reassure her cher public that she has neither fallen off the face of the earth nor succumbed to that mysterious illness that’s killing all the bloggers. The last few days have been something of a slow news period for opera gossip and your doyenne has taken advantage of that fact by…
Our previous Regiequiz was something of a “gimme,” since so many of you could easily guess it was Das Rheingold. This one may be a bit more difficult.
Juan Diego Flòrez sings his role debut as Duca di Mantova, last night in the Teatro Alejandro Granda, Lima, Peru. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/7Wrx77vQv1w” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
Sanford‘s mention of his preparation of a vocal identification quiz reminds La Cieca that she has one of these popular puzzlers already on hand. This clip samples nine baritones in “Il balen” from Il trovatore. And La Cieca is sure you all will be quick to identify all nine in the comments section. Il balen…
“Three situations that inspire terror in any opera singer — going on as an understudy, making a Metropolitan Opera debut, singing that most challenging of all tenor roles, Wagner’s Tristan, for the first time. On March 14, Gary Lehman took on all these challenges in a single evening, emerging a hero.” Our Own JJ comments…
Even as La Cieca writes this, that legendary grande dame thespian Zoe Caldwell is treading the boards of the Level “C” rehearsal room at our own little Metropolitan Opera in preparation for her debut with the company as the Duchesse de Krakenthorpe in La Fille du Régiment. (Imagine how impressive she’ll be once she’s in…
Definitive barihunk Nathan Gunn (center) will play Lancelot in a semistaged concert of Lerner and Loewe’s musical Camelot at Avery Fisher Hall May 7-10. Additional hunkiness will be provided by Gabriel Byrne (Arthur) and Marc Kudisch (Sir Lionel) and the diva quotient may be filled by Marin Mazzie as Guenevere. The New York Philharmonic presentation…
La Cieca’s spy, just returned from the Metropolitan Opera Guild luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria honoring Franco Zeffirelli, reports: Lynn Redgrave did the voiceover for a video retrospective of Zeffirelli’s life, beginning with his origins as a “love child” (news to me). But the highlight was Angela Gheorghiu. After performing two Romanian folk tunes nobody knew or…
The recent death of Anthony Minghella leaves at least two Met projects in limbo. First is the opera commissioned from Osvaldo Golijov, Daedalus, currently scheduled for the 2011-2012 season. Minghella was set to serve as librettist and to direct the completed work. According to Variety, the late director’s plans at the Met also included a…
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.
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.