Patricia Racette takes over the remaining performances of Madama Butterfly this season (March 3 and 7) at the Met including the HD telecast, “replacing Cristina Gallardo-Domâs who is ill.”
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La Cieca hears the distressing news from Paris that Rolando Villazon was advised by his current management to cancel his March appearances as Werther in order to “rest and refresh the voice,” but as of today is still planning to go on in the Massenet opera. Villazon’s appearances in Paris run through March 18, leaving…
Angela Gheorghiu has canceled tonight’s performance of Rondine at the Met; presumably Maureen O’Flynn Katie Van Kooten will go on.
La Cieca has just heard a very soft whisper that there may be another cast change afoot for tomorrow’s HD telecast of Lucia from the Met.
La Cieca unfortunately has been offweb since just before the announcement was made that Giuseppe Filianoti would be jumping in to tonight’s Met Lucia. (According to the Met’s press release, incidentally, “Mr. Villazón is still scheduled to sing Edgardo on February 7 matinee.”) Anyway, as Providence would have it, La Cieca has one of her…
La Cieca hears that tonight’s Lucia at the Met will be the criterion for deciding whether one or both of the leads might be replaced for the final two performances of the run including the HD telecast February 7. La Cieca, alas, cannot be in the theater tonight, drat that pesky root canal, so she…
La Cieca has just heard that Opera Orchestra of New York will cancel the remainder of their 2009 season, which was to have consisted of Rienzi on March 19 and Medea on April 21.
Followers of the cultural scene on the Left Coast will be interested to see that Michael Capasso (of Dicapo gala notoriety) is apparently involved in the production of A Christmas Carol at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles. Although the graphic promises “John Goodman, Jane Leeves, Jane Seymour, with Christopher Lloyd . . . and…
La Cieca hears whispers that Will Crutchfield‘s “Bel Canto at Caramoor” may be the next victim of the economic crisis. No reflection on Will (he can’t be expected to predict the future, after all), but the year the nation enters a recession is hardly the best time to try to put on Semiramide. Update: La Cieca just…
La Cieca just received the official notice from the Metropolitan Opera that Linda Watson will sing Saturday night’s Isolde. Your doyenne has received further inside information that the Met has secretly hired an Irish white witch to break the curse on the company’s current staging of the Wagner music drama by setting ablaze the sets and costumes…
CORRECTION: It seems that nasty curse has landed on La Cieca, too. Can you believe that your doyenne misheard the bit of gossip she relayed you a couple of hours ago? Yes, it does indeed appear Katarina Dalayman and Susan Foster are both too ill to sing the last Tristan of the season at the…
The Met’s lastest semi-Isolde made her debut last night, as Susan Foster jumped into the third act of Wagner’s music drama. A spy at the performance reported that the supposedly recovering Katarina Dalayman sounded “SCHRECKLICH and was announced as unable to continue at the beginning of the third act … Susan Foster and proceeded to…
La Cieca has just heard that as of this afternoon, La Scala has dismissed Giuseppe Filianoti from their opening night new production of Don Carlos (scheduled for a worldwide telecast Sunday) and replaced him for the entire run of performances with American tenor Stuart Neill. Per La Cieca’s source, at the Thursday open dress rehearsal…
Gary Lehman sings Tristan tonight at the Met, replacing the ailing Peter Seiffert.
A jump-in a due in tonight’s Met Butterfly, as Maria Gavrilova and Marcello Giordani substitute for Patricia Racette and Roberto Aronica . Earlier today at the production presentation and first rehearsal for Thaïs, Olga Makarina played the titular hooker — while Renée Fleming played hooky.
Opera Pacific has canceled the remainder of their season and “will likely close down operations for good.” [via OC Register]
Got to give credit to Bryn Terfel: he’s now canceling a whole season in advance. The bass-baritone scrapped his spring 2009 appearance in the Met’s L’elisir d’amore several months ago, and now he’s pulled out of the company’s 2009 opening night, a new production of Tosca that now stars Karita Mattila and Marcelo Alvarez. The…
La Cieca hears from a spy at the Met that tenor Roberto Aronica “after belching through the first part of the Butterfly orchestra rehearsal,” retreated to the company canteen where, the tenor complains, he received “an electrical shock from the espresso machine.” We are told that the singer is spending the night in a local…
In what is becoming the New York City Opera’s only conduit of information to the public, a Friday afternoon news dump reveals that the company has laid off 11 members of its administrative staff. The layoffs are “because of financial pressures and a lack of work caused by the cancellation of most of its season.”…
In what La Cieca believes is the gayest photograph ever taken, Rufus Wainwright strikes a pose with Faye Dunaway on the red carpet at the Met’s opening night. More heart-warming news from Women’s Wear Daily: Oscar de la Renta will not, after all, boycott the Met as he previously threatened. The designer had complained to…
La Cieca has just heard that Patrick Summers will conduct all performances of Richard Strauss’s Salome at the Met this season, “replacing Mikko Franck, who is ill.”
Artistic adminstrators at the Met and around the world are gnashing their teeth and tearing their hair this afternoon at Bryn Terfel‘s bombshell announcement that he will retire from opera “within three years.” The biggest local impact will be felt in the Met’s glossy new Ring cycle, in which (according to Brad Wilber) Terfel was slated…
La Cieca has just learned that Salvatore Licitra has withdrawn “for personal reasons” from the Met’s new Trovatore, which opens February 16, 2009. Marcelo Ãlvarez will be Manrico instead, which means he (Ãlvarez) will cancel Adriana Lecouvreur, which opens on February 6. The replacement Maurizio will be announced at a later date once the hysterical…
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