Blind Item

Sexual confusion at the opera

The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, is using “sexual confusion” to prevent wear and tear on their costume collection: “The traps installed for the Royal Opera House make male clothes moths appear to other males as females, by sticking female pheromones to their bodies. “In a plot that could have come from an opera, males attempt […]

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Web of mystery

La Cieca is just asking — why should the Web site of that prominent American baritone suddenly go offline? This artist (recently at the pinnacle of his career) has done musicals before, but this fancy footwork looks like something from Chicago! And which switch-hitting intendant is making noises about quitting his summer job? Is he […]

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Deep pockets

Which artists’ management company (hint: it’s one of the Big Three) is in such dire financial trouble that its president is regularly forced to dip into his own (considerable) private fortune to preserve the semblance of a positive cash flow? Which big-name stage director recently showed up for rehearsals of a complicated opera completely unfamiliar […]

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Yes, it is good to be back

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 […]

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Take my wife, please!

Which intendant-to-be is gaining a nasty reputation for nepotism, as in forcing his wife’s baton down the throat of opera companies afraid to incur his wrath? This kind of behavior ought to send up a red flag… or at least a yellow one.

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Head line

Which diva, star of a new production that was one of the Met’s hottest tickets of recent years, has refused to repeat her role in a future season because she can’t stand the staging? We’ll hear her sing a different title role instead.

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