The year in review The year in review

In the calendar year 2012, parterre.com garnered an estimated five million pageviews, with over 1,600,000 visits and more than 300,000 unique visitors.

NYCO 2012-2013 season announcement NYCO 2012-2013 season announcement

Coverage starts live, here on parterre, at 11:00 AM.

Out with the auld

“There comes a time in every woman’s life when the only thing that helps is a glass of champagne,” says La Cieca (pictured, left).  As she prepares to bid 2011 adieu, your doyenne invites the cher public (artist’s conception, right) to join her in making a few resolutions for 2012.

The future, as it was

Reviewing some old files while restoring the parterre mainframe’s hard drive, La Cieca ran across some predictions made in 2006 of what the current Met season would consist of. The details after the jump.  

The elite prepare to meet

Where has the time gone? La Cieca was just reminded this morning that on Tuesday the 2012 recipients of the F. Paul Driscoll Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence (aka The Opera News Award) will be named. Though your doyenne has no details yet about which lucky opera types are to be…

Horn of a dilemma

La Cieca has just heard that Salvatore Licitra is out of all performances of the Met’s 2012 revival of Ernani. The role of Verdi’s bandit will be shared between Marcello Giordani and Roberto DeBiasio.

Two heads are better than one

La Cieca is pretty sure this is going to be a popular choice, and she thinks as well she’s just discovered parterre’s new resident futurologist. Congratulations to Baritenor (pictured) for his exhaustive essay on the Met’s 2011-2012 season.

When heroes collide

As perhaps you may have heard hinted hereabouts, “Gary Lehman and Stephen Gould will sing the role of Siegfried in the Met’s 2011-12 season performances of Wagner’s Siegfried and Götterdämmerung, replacing Ben Heppner who has retired the role from his repertory.” That’s according to a release from the Met’s press office less than an hour…

Una furtiva chiacchiera

Not to scoop Brad Wilber (if such a thing were possible!) but La Cieca has just heard that the much-discussed opening night of the Met’s 2012-13 season has been settled. Starring in a new Bartlett Sher production of L’elisir d’amore will be Anna Netrebko, Matthew Polenzani and Mariusz Kwiecien, with Dulcamara and conductor TBA.

Futurino

The updates on Brad Wilber‘s new Met Futures page are arriving almost daily now, with perhaps the most startling recent news the “removal” of Juan Diego Flórez from a projected new production of I puritani in April 2014. But there’s more to it, after the jump.

something sort of grandish

La Cieca hears that the “all 20th century” concept of the first Gerard Mortier season at NYCO may be subject to modification. According to an impeccably reliable source, the first season will include a rarely-seen French Grand Opera and an evening centered around pieces of Verdi done with a double chorus – one all African-American,…

missing minghella

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…

are they all like that?

La Cieca has heard that New York City Opera General Manager (Designate) Gerard Mortier is planning a new production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte for the 2012 season, directed by Austrian film director Michael Haneke.