La Cieca has just learned that Anna Netrebko, who is currently awaiting the September arrival of her first child, has withdrawn from her scheduled Met performances as Mimì on December 29, 2008 and January 3 matinee, 6, and 10, 2009. According to a press release from the met, the soprano “has decided that she will need a…
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.
According to boston.com, James Levine will miss the remainder of the season at Tanglewood in order to have a kidney removed. The maestro will require about six weeks of recuperation after the surgery. The Tanglewood season will continue as planned, with guest conductors taking over Levine’s eight scheduled dates.
Speaking of Broadway, David Merrick once said (if La Cieca recalls correctly) that even though Pearl Bailey played Hello, Dolly! for only one season, the legendary diva managed to squeeze in two seasons’ worth of cancellations. A roughly similar situation may be observed at Opera Orchestra of New York, a company that does only three performances…
Conductor Franz Welser-Moest (not pictured) has backed out of two performances of Die Fledermaus at the Zurich Opera, complaining that he was “unhappy” with the staging by Michael Sturminger. One innovation in this production is the inclusion of several vampires among Orlovsky’s retinue, which of course means that good old Frosch has lots of funny…
parterre mascot Izzy Anderson returns with yet another bash at “La donna e mobile.” Video impresario Wenarto obviously is working his connections like mad since he has managed to film this scene on the Act 2 set from the Met’s Tristan.
La Cieca just heard that Ben Heppner has canceled the first night of the Met’s revival of Tristan und Isolde. John Mac Master will sing opposite Deborah Voigt.
From the Met’s website:
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)
Cher public, La Cieca acted with her usual impetuosity last night and migrated the blog to WordPress. For the last couple of months, Blogger has been slower and slower to post to FTP, and their Help Desk might better be called “Desk.” The frustration really peaked late yesterday afternoon when La Cieca got the “fishbone”…
OperaChic caught the story first, and now it’s even made the AP: Juan Diego Flórez has canceled Chicago (and anything else on the agenda for the next six weeks or so) due to a throat infection from a swallowed fishbone.
UPDATE: La Cieca has heard from more than one reliable source that Juan Diego Flórez is yet another victim of whatever it is that’s mowing down all the Almavivas. The tenor, she hears, has canceled Barbiere di Siviglia at Lyric Opera of Chicago. Word on the street is that John Osborn will be released from…
UPDATE: La Cieca has just heard that the “dark season” is not a done deal just yet. The NYCO board meets next week to make that decision. (Given how late in the game this is, most likely the “decision” will be no more than a formality. But La Cieca will keep her ear to the…
La Cieca hears that our dear Aprile Millo (who recently had to cancel a Teatro Grattacielo appearance due to illness) is ready to bounce back big time in 2008. Word on the street is that Millo will join longtime colleague Dolora Zajick for a bel canto duet in OONY’s spring gala, followed by a return…
Writes a spy: Today at the final dress, it was pretty obvious why Reneeeeee would cancel her Normas – the “Sempre libera” was SCARY bad – completely off the voice for the mewing and really sloppy coloratura, and then she had to go back on-voice to try and get to the Bb/B/C/Db area. The repeated…
Opera performances in Paris are canceled due to strikes.
Autumn in New York means many things to many people. To some, it’s glittering crowds and shimmering clouds in canyons of steel; others reflect upon upon jaded roués and gay divorcées who lunch at the Ritz. To singers it’s the height of the allergy and cancellation season. But to us, the most echt of all…
The Met’s star-crossed revival of Roméo et Juliette has just hit another bump. Nathan Gunn, announced for Mercutio, has dropped out of the September and October performances of the opera due to illness. Jumping in will be baryhunque Stéphane Degout, who performed Mercutio in this production back in 2005. Gunn is still on the cast…
Fans of red-haired three-named sopranos d’un certain âge will rejoice to hear that at least a couple of the mainstays of the Volpe Era have been asked back to the Met under the Gelb Aegis. (And after all that naughty gossip about firings and buyings-out! Who ever heard of such a thing?) Anyway, not to…
There’s some bit of information that La Cieca’s missing in this story, or maybe it would be obvious to readers in the “This is Wiltshire Network.” But here goes. “Yet another” rural opera festival in Britain (this time, in “Somerly Park,” which is where La Cieca imagines the Maggie Smith character lives when she’s not…
Roberto Alagna will jump — no, not into the swimming pool, but rather into the first two performances (September 25 and 29) of the Met’s fall revival of Roméo et Juliette, replacing Rolando Villazón who has withdrawn due to illness. The Met’s press office officially announced Villazón’s cancellation today, though regular parterre.com readers knew all…
As La Cieca whispered earlier this week, Rolando Villazón is going to cancel at least the fall portion of his Met Roméo engagement. This morning PlaybillArts.com says the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette is reporting a statement from the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra that the tenor is “ill and has been instructed by his doctor to cancel all performances…
La Cieca hears that Rolando Villazón, who recently canceled his Salzburg Festival appearances citing “long-term illness” (“einer längerfristigen Erkrankung”), may pull out of the Met’s fall revival of Roméo et Juliette as well. The tenor is scheduled for five performances of the Gounod opera between September 25 and October 11, followed by another four in…
The nice people at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland cannot be happy about last minute changes to this past weekend’s concert schedule caused by late cancellations by James Levine and Renée Fleming. Maestro Levine, advertised for concerts on July 20 and 22, tendered his regrets on July 16, noting “My doctors have strongly advised me…
La Cieca is totally in awe of the insightful (and totally enjoyable) reporting her baby sister OperaChic is doing on the most recent Angela Gheorghiu scandale. In what La Cieca chooses to regard as an early 50th anniversary hommage to one of the most infamous moments in the career of Maria Callas, la Gheorghiu has,…
