In the bodice-ripping tradition of HBOShowtime’s The Tudors, DG presents I Capuleti e i Montecchi. Or does La Cieca just think everyone looks like Jonathan Rhys Meyers?
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.
And people say that in olden days singers used more chest! Ha, says La Cieca. Ha!
Sharp-eyed reader Sadie Salome writes: It seems I was the only one spent much of last night’s letter scene peering through her binoculars at Karita Mattila‘s fine acting, because I see no report on your site of last night’s mishap (and if it isn’t on your site, then it obviously hasn’t been reported anywhere!) As you…
Mom of the Moment Anna Netrebko and her weapons-grade bazooms are featured in an interview with the Post’s Barbara Hoffman.
According to BBC News, “Classical star” Katherine Jenkins hopes to “take up” Placido Domingo‘s “offer” to “train” her to be an “opera singer.” “Placido Domingo has offered to train me and I’ll probably go to his house when we both have the time free,” Jenkins explained. “He’s a very generous person and he’s always trying…
Now, never let it be said that La Cieca was in any way opposed to glamour, and you know very well that is a fervent believer in dear Pablo Picasso‘s maxim that “art is a lie that makes us realize truth.” But, on the other hand, there’s this month’s cover of Opera News.
La Cieca has just heard the fascinating report that Cecilia Bartoli is to star in the musical biopic The Maria Guleghina Story, playing “Young Maria.” In related news, Maria Guleghina has accepted a featured role in The Cecilia Bartoli Story as “Herself” in a sequence based on the making of the musical biopic The Maria…
La Cieca thanks cher Charles for sending this “funniest, most withering description of singers ever written” from James M. Cain’s Mildred Pierce.
La Cieca completes today’s Cleavage Trifecta with the following video discovered on YouTube: [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/50nOUj64uNE” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
Dear Addison DeWitt once said, “You have a point. An idiotic one, but a point.” Actually he didn’t say it to La Cieca, but that’s neither here nor there. Since your doyenne is what you might call pathologically determined to see both sides of every questions, she’s going to reopen the can of worms here…
Now here’s some political news La Cieca can follow with interest: Merkel surprises with daring décolleté at Oslo opera That how The Local described German Chancellor Angela Merkel‘s appearance as a special guest at Saturday night’s gala celebrating the opening of Den Norske Opera’s new auditorium. It seems Die Kanzlerin racked up a double handful…
Better to say “greatest misses,” La Cieca thinks, though even that phrase is flawed by a nearly Hollandaise level of inaccuracy. The errors and gaffes of the flannel-eared Times critic are surely too many and too egregious for one writer to anthologize; certainly they seem to have overwhelmed the Newspaper of Record’s squadrons of copy…
Doesn’t it just figure that this story would break only a few minutes after La Cieca used the perfect headline on another story? Oh, well, anyway, Montsi will be fascinated! (via Defamer)
Okay, La Cieca knows a bit about fashion and even a smidge about clothing construction (you should hear her dishing the godets during Project Runway) but she must admit she can’t figure out what the hell Anna Netrebko is wearing here. Did she just take a dip in the pool? Was she performing a nude…
Longtime readers of parterre box will recall the series of articles entitled “Ou va la jeune andouille” by enigmatic Enzo Bordello on the subject of the youthful fan’s experiences at New Orleans Opera. One of the most infamous of all NOO events, though, was one Enzo did not experience in person: I was not allowed…
La Cieca was franky overwhelmed by both the volume and the quality of the “Season Brochure” contest entries, so she’s decided to ask you, her cher public, to help decide the winner. In this and four succeeding posts, she will present five finalists. Later today, she will post a ballot so you, the cher public,…
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, “The male toilets of Australia’s most famous landmark, the Sydney Opera House, has been listed among hot spots for a hook up point for men cruising sex with other men.” Jane Eaglen is going to teach young people how to sing. “By the time her stepfather Herodes starts sucking…
Elegantly bescarved divas Grace Bumbry and Shirley Verrett (in alphabetical order) “rehearse” scenes from Aida and Norma in preparation for their historic 1983 duo concert.
You know, it’s one thing to flounce around dusting the floor of a church with your silken train, the meantime flaunting your bosom to the Blessed Virgin, but it’s another thing altogether to take a heartfelt hymn like “Amazing Grace” and transform it into cheap soundtrack music. Can’t someone stop this woman?
You could say last night at the Met was a typical Aprile Millo performance, if that expression were not essentially an oxymoron. “Typical” and “Millo” really don’t intersect in this dimension (maybe somewhere on a spiritual plane? But I digress.) Let’s just say that, what happens at a Millo night, happened last night, which is…
