From the mailbag: Dear La Cieca, First of all, you are fab. [Several paragraphs of fulsome praise snipped.] But that’s beside the point. I just noticed that the Met has published more details on their upcoming HD broadcasts. Unfortunately, at least as far as Ontario is located, they did an abominable job in choosing their…
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Where else would La Cieca be this Sunday but basking the the star radiance of the Richard Tucker Music Foundation’s annual gala? Now! With 100% more Met artists, including Elizabeth Futral, Samuel Ramey, José Cura, René Pape, James Morris, Marcello Giordani, Patricia Racette, Joseph Calleja, Angela Marambio, Sandra Radvanovsky and Aprile Millo. The galalicious fun…
Andy‘s take on the Tommasini “lamentation” — The Opera House is Half Full.
Our story this far: 17 October 2006: La Cieca reports (erroneously) that Andrea Gruber is about to be “bought out” of a Met revival of La fanciulla del West. 20 October 2006: La Cieca discovers that the Fanciulla isn’t happening; Gruber and Salvatore Licitra possibly to be cast in the replacement opera? 21 October 2006:…
Not to poach on Bill Phair‘s territory, but… Ready or not, here comes Patti!
Unnatural Acts of Opera salutes bass-baritone Thomas Stewart with selections from Der Fliegende Hollaender, Die Meistersinger, Die Walkuere, Arabella, and American songs.
Announced today: highlights of the archival Met broadcasts to be featured on Sirius during the month of October: Carmen (1/9/37) Papi; Ponselle, Bodanya, Rayner, Huehn Lucia di Lammermoor (2/27/37) Papi; Pons, Jagel, Brownlee, Pinza Die Walküre (12/2/44) Szell; Traubel, Bampton, Thorborg, Melchior, Janssen, Kipnis Roméo et Juliette (2/1/47) Cooper; Sayão, Benzell, Turner, Björling, Brownlee, Moscona…
According to our editor JJ, the current NYCO production of Semele “provided a luxe vehicle for the talents of soprano Elizabeth Futral as the mortal princess Semele who becomes the mistress of Jove. Futral is gorgeous enough to tempt the king of the gods, feminine and curvaceous, and she has the personality and wit to…
La Cieca is always quick to encourage the clever use of Photoshop, especially when it involves her two favorite subjects, i.e., opera and naked guys. That’s why she strongly recommends a look at the site called Bare Naked Men, where the Vancouver-based “Michael” digitally strips such hunks as William Burden, Nathan Gunn, Simon Keenlyside, David…
Our publisher JJ (so recently browned out in Queens) expresses his thoughts on the Lincoln Center Festival’s Grendel in his Gay City News review. La Cieca herself picks up the slack on the podcast desk with her presentation of the second act of Maria Stuarda on Unnatural Acts of Opera. Meanwhile, the endlessly inventive Billyboy…
Our left coast correspondent Baritenor reports: I would not call Grendel an opera for the faint-hearted. The libretto is well-written, but the score jumps to both ends of the operatic spectrum, going from lyrical to modernistic to lyrical again in the blink of an eye. Think Benjamin Britten on crack, if you will, only with…
At long last (but far more than worth the wait!), the latest episode of The Entertainment Beat with Frances Gumm is online. If you haven’t listened to this marvelous series, well, you just don’t know show biz. And, before La Cieca slumps into unconsciousness, please let her thank the almost 100 participants in tonight’s live…
We interrupt this liveblogging with this bulletin: James Levine didn’t show for the Volpe Gala. (Obviously he wasn’t going to conduct, but not even to walk out onstage?) What’s more, Rudy Giuliani didn’t show either. And Uncle Joe himself didn’t even make a speech. Oh, God, how they must all hate him!
11:40: Then Rene Pape matched Hvorostovsky, then Zajick matched (topped?) them both, then who the hell had the idiotic idea of doing the Easter Hymn with a mezzo who can’t sing it and the chorus apparently stoned or else in another city? (Oh, and did you notice the long, noisy scene change afterward? Vintage Volpe.)11:05:…
You know, La Cieca heard there were some staging modifications to the Wilson Lohengrin since the last revivial, but who knew? As La Cieca announces in her current podcast, she will be liveblogging the WQXR broadcast of the Volpe Farewell Gala this Saturday evening. Comments will be enabled so you can be as interactive as…
Point/Counterpoint from the wellsung twins: Jonathan: “Renee Fleming is a disaster as Rodelinda. What the hell is going on? WHY does she sing this rep? It was like one big slur that lasted for four hours. I did not hear one consonant, and there was no sense whatsoever of where one note ended and another…
“Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else.” That’s the advice Judy Garland gave Liza Minnelli, and I think we can all agree that dear Liza took those words to heart with great success. At the moment, though, La Cieca is wondering how Judy would feel about a…
Those of you who are enjoying La Cieca’s video clips, as presented on Google Video and YouTube now can have a copy of your very own. A new web-based service called KeepVid lets you download any video on these sites to your hard drive. (Note that many of these videos are in the .flv format,…
Do any of you out there ever wonder exactly what it is an “Artistic Administrator” does?
Alas, La Cieca can’t comment regarding onstage goings on at last night’s Traviata at the Met (her evil twin JJ is writing about the event for Gay City News), but things were pretty gala in the auditorium as well. Representing the Blogosphere was one of the Wellsungs, Jonathan Ferrantelli, a deux with the always charming…
La Cieca’s spy L’incredibile, who has only moments ago slunk home from the Met’s Traviata dress rehearsal, predicts a triumph for Angela Gheorghiu as Violetta. “The most beautiful soprano to sing the role here since Anna Moffo,” L’incredibile exults, though he adds reservations about the carrying power of Gheorgiu’s “veiled” voice and the “frequent disagreements”…
In her never-ceasing quest to give you, the reader, what you want and need, La Cieca has restored the “Google Search” function on parterre.com. With this handy gizmo you can search the entire (blog and non-blog) parterre.com site, or, years from now when you’ve learned all you can learn from La Cieca, you can also…
La Cieca is feeling more and more doyenne-y by the day as she sees so many young bloggers sprouting up like so many tender little, uh, sprouts. Off to a rousing start is wellsung.blogspot.com, written by two little gay boys (or gay-vague boys) named Jonathan and Alex. La Cieca assumes they’re gay because they write…
Sister Sieglinde summarizes the roiling controversy so far in her Diary, and the most recent whisper La Cieca has heard is, “if that rock promoter wanted Avril Lavigne, he should have hired Avril Lavigne; Aprile is an opera singer.” Among the rumors La Cieca doesn’t believe: Millo is afraid to sing high notes. [Duh, she…
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