You’ve heard of “O face” and “Butter face.” Now La Cieca presents for your approval a new operatic term, used to describe the frighteningly contorted and sometimes downright Cheneyesque expressions affected by singers of Vivaldi and other baroque music. It’s called… “Armatae Face.”

By on December 06, 2009 at 11:19 PM
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I have just come back home from Le Poisson Rouge, a stylish multimedia art cabaret in Greenwich Village where Decca offered a sneak peak of Cecilia Bartoli‘s DVD Sacrificium, which will be released some time next year. I normally don’t drink liquor, but my duty as a reporter obliged me not to refuse a special…

By on November 17, 2009 at 12:17 PM
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La Cieca knows the cher public will be intrigued to hear that tomorrow night (Monday, November 16), NYC’s downtown classical music venue Le Poisson Rouge will offer a screening of Cecilia Bartoli in a live concert, filmed September 10, 2009. Meanwhile, in honor of this cinematic event, your doyenne is launching a parterre competition for…

By on November 15, 2009 at 9:02 PM
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Cecilia Bartoli’s latest vanity release bucks protocol to present an album heavy on historical concept. The classical recording industry has long feasted on the popularity of operatic solo records, especially during the last few years of industry-wide decline in CD sales. Incidentally, as record companies run out of ways to sell the standard repertoire to…

By on October 31, 2009 at 12:57 AM
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“Verismo,” Renée Fleming informs us, “means truth.” What better demonstration of this artist’s dedication to the real-life (not to say the mundane) than her apparent decision to fire her stylist and hairdresser in hopes of achieving a greater naturalism of appearance. Indeed, La Cieca would say that Fleming has succeeded: at least as documented in…

By on August 19, 2009 at 2:01 PM
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After the jump is the cover of Cecilia Bartoli‘s new CD, which apparently is all castrato music, all the time. Oh, it hurts! 

By on August 11, 2009 at 4:29 PM
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So, guess who’s going to sing Norma? “Sie ist die unbestrittene, strahlende Königin des Koloratur-Mezzofachs: Cecilia Bartoli. In der kommenden Saison wird sie im KONZERTHAUS DORTMUND in einer der bedeutendsten und schwierigsten Partien der gesamten Opernliteratur zu erleben sein: als „Norma“ in Vincenzo Bellinis gleichnamiger Oper. Die musikalische Leitung dieser wichtigen konzertanten Produktion liegt in…

By on April 22, 2009 at 4:06 PM
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A preview the new Decca recording of La sonnambula with Cecilia Bartoli and Juan Diego Flórez. Comments? Amazon.com Widgets

By on February 25, 2009 at 1:50 PM
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Here’s another (and very different) crop of that production photo of Cecilia Bartoli. You provide the caption. La Cieca will get you started: “L’amore di Fay Wray.”

By on May 26, 2008 at 4:27 PM
107 comments