Zukunftsmiausik Zukunftsmiausik

Leave it to a cat to transform a Wagner festival into the Jellicle Ball.

on January 15, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Express your elf! Express your elf!

La Cieca (pictured) would like to remind those members of the cher public with last-minute gift shopping needs that purchases from the Little Shop of Arias completed today (Friday) can still reach the recipient by December 24.

on December 21, 2012 at 3:29 AM
Fill up the stocking Fill up the stocking

La Cieca has once again hauled out the holly, filled up the stocking, sliced up the fruitcake and hung some tinsel on that evergreen bough.

on December 03, 2012 at 12:00 AM
Something for everyone Something for everyone

From historical documents to the dernier cri of regie, October’s new DVD releases are a potpourri of objets d’art.

on October 10, 2012 at 2:31 PM
Fifty Shades of Great Fifty Shades of Great

Those adorable kids over at EMI Classics have followed up the ridiculous with the sublime: an mp3 download of 50 arias (over four hours of music) sung by Maria Callas for… are you ready? 99 cents.

on August 17, 2012 at 5:47 PM
The Wurm turns The Wurm turns

The Met’s controversial Ring cycle, directed by Robert Lepage (not pictured) and conducted by TBA (possibly pictured) makes its home video debut on September 11.

on August 07, 2012 at 11:50 PM
Uncle Smania Uncle Smania

Scoring the Fire and Music contest was tricky, cher public, as the selections were both quite brief and relatively obscure.

on July 27, 2012 at 10:42 AM
Nun der Quiz mich müd gemacht Nun der Quiz mich müd gemacht

After a brilliantly collaborative start, the cher public fell just short of deciphering the complete Beim Schlafengehen quiz, though several of you did very well indeed.

on July 13, 2012 at 12:11 PM
A disc fit for the gods A disc fit for the gods

As we lurch into the month of July, La Cieca (not pictured, one hopes) wants quietly but firmly to draw the attention of her cher public to some of the more interesting releases on audio and video newly available on Amazon.com.

on July 01, 2012 at 1:21 AM
Viva, viva il nostro Alcide! Viva, viva il nostro Alcide!

Congratulations to Cesare 15 (pictured, right) who came, saw and—after a false start or two—conquered in the very challenging “Piangerò” quiz devised by Our Own DeCaffarrelli!

on June 25, 2012 at 11:04 AM
Czech mate Czech mate

At first glance, Ivor Bolton, Chief Conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, would seem an odd choice to lead Jenufa, Janacek’s grim tale of infanticide and oppressive village morality.

on May 03, 2012 at 11:58 PM
Hier bleibt Elektra Hier bleibt Elektra

The Met has finally released the contents of the James Levine 40th Anniversary box sets separately for those of us who didn’t have $500 lying around.

on April 23, 2012 at 9:43 AM
Hats off! Hats off!

The stunning New Broadway Cast Recording of Sondheim’s Follies is currently on sale on Amazon for an astonishing $4.99.

on December 27, 2011 at 6:36 PM

More innovative casting from amazon.com.

on November 16, 2011 at 10:00 AM

For those of you not fortunate or not conscientious enough to attend Atys at BAM this week, there’s a video document of the production (taped earlier this year) following the jump.

on September 20, 2011 at 7:21 PM

La Cieca invites the cher public to visit The Little Shop of Arias (your doyenne’s Amazon store) for all those last-minute holiday shopping needs!

on December 12, 2010 at 8:02 PM

Incredible, but true, I Puritani had not been performed in Great Britain since 1887 when Glyndebourne decided to stage it in 1960 with the main intention to showcase Joan Sutherland, who had been catapulted to international superstardom one year earlier in the legendary Lucia di Lammermoor at Covent Garden. Furthermore, Vittorio Gui, who had already…

on December 04, 2010 at 4:19 PM

Now available on Amazon.com: James Levine: Celebrating 40 Years at the Met – CD Box Set and James Levine: Celebrating 40 Years at the Met – DVD Box Set, as recently reviewed on parterre.com.

on September 23, 2010 at 5:16 PM

At the request of a member of the cher public, La Cieca has updated the Little Shop of Arias store here at parterre. Available for preorder from amazon.com are such goodies as a new DVD of I puritani starring Nino Machaidze and Juan Diego Flórez.  

on September 12, 2010 at 11:49 AM

A long-awaited DVD from the Met documents one of the great “42nd Street” episodes in operatic history: on December 20, 1980, a largely unknown Julia Migenes (or Migenes-Johnson, as she was called in those days) stepped in on a few hours’ notice for an ailing Teresa Stratas as the anti-heroine of Berg’s Lulu. A prodigiously…

on June 08, 2010 at 11:06 AM

There is no cry heard more often these days than, “Where are all the Verdi sopranos?!?” Yes, there was a day when we had the likes of Aprile Millo, Eva Marton, Leontyne Price, Renata Tebaldi, Maria Callas, Leonie Rysanek, Zinka Milanov and Antonietta Stella all singing in the same, say 25 or 30 years. While…

on June 01, 2010 at 11:30 AM

The DVD of the 1980 Met telecast of Lulu is now on sale!

on May 11, 2010 at 9:10 PM

Sometime in the late 1950s, the management at Glyndebourne had the good idea to make archival recordings of the performances there, and these recordings, duly remastered and transferred to digital form, are gradually coming before the public through Glyndebourne’s house label. Thus it is that we find ourselves with this early release, a recording of…

on February 16, 2010 at 10:44 AM

It took the Metropolitan Opera decades to catch up with the rest of the world and finally stage La Cenerentola. Gioachino Rossini’s opera buffa, one of his most beloved and accomplished works, received its belated Met debut in 1997, amidst legitimate suspicions that the new production was less a genuine desire to add a belcanto…

on February 15, 2010 at 4:51 PM