“Labels play a hugely important role in our listening lives.”
Baritones: is there anything they don’t know?
Remember the disastrous 2010 Traviata at the Met, “conducted” by Leonard Slatkin?
“One of the most highly-regarded pianists of our time, Grigory Sokolov, has refused to accept the Cremona Music Award 2015 because it has previously been awarded to the blogger Norman Lebrecht.”
You know, the commenters at parterre.com (pictured) may get a bit testy from time to time, but at least nobody here says stuff like, oh, for example…
Friend and friend-in-law of parterre box Greg Sandow pours the oil of calm and rational analysis upon the troubled waters of the Met’s current labor negotiations in the most recent installment of his always excellent (not to mention eponymous) blog.
“Toilets occupy me a great deal because, well, this is England after all and they matter.”
La bohème is such a popular romantic opera that hardly anyone ever notices that Mimì and Rodolfo undergo what in modern terms would be called speed dating.
“Is Parsifal, then, a religious artwork, or is it a work ‘about’ religion?”
“After attending the dress rehearsal in London I wrote the following to Mr Carsen to give him the opportunity to make changes.”
On the occasion of “the greatest party for Classical Music on the planet,” the Last Night of the Proms, mezzo Joyce DiDonato quietly (but audibly) takes a stand for equality.
Opera Teen (pictured, second from left) is not kidding us: he had an interview with Peter Gelb.
“Taking the libretto’s description of ‘panther-like’ literally, Bacchus appears in a shiny leopard-print suit…”
La Cieca has reviewed the parterre circulation numbers and she is delighted and not a little perplexed to note that the day of the Great Opera News Kerfuffle provided our site with the highest number of pageviews in history.
“Aus den Trümmern der zusammengestürzten Halle sehen die Männer und Frauen in höchster Ergriffenheit dem wachsenden Feuerschein am Himmel zu.”
Daniel Wakin reports that “WQXR pulled a blog posting critical of the Metropolitan Opera’s new Ring cycle last month after the Met’s general manager, Peter Gelb, personally complained to the radio station’s top executive…”
UPDATE: Blogger Out West Arts reflects on the “Occupy Wall Street” incident at the Met’s Faust last night, noting that the shouts (and various responses from members of the audience) did not interrupt the music.
Randal Turner, pictured above, is but one of 33 barihunks featured in—who ever would have guessed?— “the first Barihunks calendar,” just in time for holiday giving and receiving. All proceeds from the calendar, available at the Barihunks site, will be donated to young artist programs. (Photo by Sarah Wells)
La Cieca is delighted to announce that after a long absence Our Own JJ (not pictured) has returned to the pages of Musical America with another entry in his “Rough and Regie” blog— this time comparing Atys with Follies.
Congratulations to the composer (Two Boys, Dark Sisters) and blogger on this day of transition from Wunderkind to Wundererwachsener. (Photo by Sam West)
Jonas Kaufmann has canceled a tour to Japan with the Teatro Comunale di Bologna in September in order to schedule surgery to remove a “node” from his chest. [Intermezzo]
After 15 years of astoundingly accurate forecasts of future Met seasons, the invaluable resource by Brad Wilber has been, apparently, permanently expunged from the internet. Those of you who, like La Cieca, will cherish the last bits of wisdom from this site may want to download and save this PDF of the most recent cached…
La Cieca’s lovely and talented colleague Olivia Giovetti takes on the Met’s gift shop in the latest installment of her WQX-Aria blog. La Cieca herself is of at the very least two minds about the changes to the gift shop, but she’ll invite you, the cher public, to chew on this issue before starts gnawing…
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.
