“It started out as something of a dinner party crowd-pleaser.”
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.
“It’s no surprise Kim Kardashian likes to dress as if she’s going to the opera each day.”
Is there anything more essentially operatic than the suffering of women?
Natalie Dessay coyly bares a breast on the cover of Virgin Classics’ new Giulio Cesare.
Just for you girls, Betsy turns her headlights on a nice handful of operas that will no doubt prove to be bags of fun.
La Cieca supposes that maybe the reason Angela Gheorghiu doesn’t include any music from Manon Lescaut on her new “Homage to Callas” CD is that she can’t quite identify with the character?
Three Juliettes, three different seasons of the Met’s Roméo et Juliette: Natalie Dessay in 2005, Anna Netrebko in 2007, Hei-Kyung Hong in 2011. At this rate, La Cieca predicts that the role will be performed in the nude sometime around 2025. (Photos: Dessay and Hong by Marty Sohl, Netrebko by Ken Howard.)
Above is a preliminary PR photo of Eva-Maria Westbroek in the “biggest than life” titular role of the Mark-Anthony Turnage/Richard Thomas bio-opera Anna Nicole, set to open tonight at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden. But without the benefit of Photoshop and artful lighting, what do Westbroek and Anna Nicole really look like?
You can stop all your wondering about who will play Anna Nicole Smith in the eponymous oeuvre by Mark-Anthony Turnage (The Silver Tassie) and Richard Thomas (Jerry Springer: the Opera), scheduled for a premiere at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden in February 2011. It’s Eva-Maria Westbroek, seen here in the (ahem) Titelpartie of Lady Macbeth…
Renée Fleming and Dmitri Hvorostovsky offer an object lesson in the traditional old school performance practice of “lurch and flail” operatic acting.
“Opera singer” Katherine Jenkins canceled her appearance at last night’s National Television Awards due to (wait for it!) a “chest infection.” [digital spy]
Katherine Jenkins, C-list Britpop has-beens… and Rolando Villazón in a ginormous jewfro. No, this does not bode well.
In an unexpected bonus round of “This Diva Looks Like That Diva,” conspiracy theorists will surely puzzle over the eerily similar headshots of these two New York Post columnists.
La Cieca’s old, old, old friend Zachary Woolfe will take to the airwaves tomorrow morning to discuss, among other less titillating topics, the controversial omission of pastied boobage from the Met’s impending HD of Les Contes d’Hoffmann. You can hear Zack on WQXR’s Arts File at 8:30am, on 105.9FM or wqxr.org.
“I cannot clothe them! I need models!” Miuccia Prada “reportedly groaned” when confronted with “curvy” supers hired for the Met’s new production of Attila. [Page Six]
Condescending to opera lovers across America — and cheating both Bartlett Sher and Squirrel out of the simple joys of partial nudity — the Met has decided to censor the December 19th High Def broadcast of Les Contes d’Hoffmann!
Squirrel was expecting boobs! People, there were no boobs, and for that, I was a little disappointed.
¡Mira! Mean, moody magnificent Manuela Trasobares!
I’m not sure who I find more annoying – the partisans who vigorously defend Luc Bondy‘s production of Tosca at the Met or those who decry it. As Bondy’s production replaces one of the Met’s signature offerings, both groups have seized on this event as a watershed event in the history of opera in America…
Four of the cher public caught yesterday’s HD presentation of Tosca and have agreed to share their impressions with La Cieca and the rest: “The death of Puccini’s Tosca was much exaggerated, in fact it did not take place.” “After about 34 years of going to the opera, I don’t think I’ve ever left a…
Is it just me, or is Patricia Racette on the cusp of turning into Aprile Millo? (Oh, and while we’re on the subject: it certainly took her long enough, but finally The People’s Diva really looks like a diva! Brava, you go on like this!)
“Tosca gashes the portrait of the Magdalene (with a breast bared)…” Also: damn those bloggers! Damn them! [NYT]
“Opera singer” Katherine Jenkins has been insured against getting swine flu. [Wales Online]
You know, La Cieca and her alter ego JJ are just like the pair in that lovely song by Mr. Sondheim, “The Story of Lucy and Jessie.” Well, not just like, perhaps. La Cieca can hardly be accused of having “maturity and plenty of security” and dear JJ does not exactly boast “the purity along…
