Here’s a change of pace for you parterre chatters as the Met season winds down.
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.
The cher public are reminded that Verdi’s Macbeth will be broadcast and streamed from the Met tonight, and naturally La Casa della Cieca will be open for business.
The weekly Saturday afternoon chat continues today, cher public.
For this final evening of 2011, La Cieca invites you to a final chat. Starting at 6:30 PM, the cher public are invited to wade into The Enchanted Island, broadcast live from the Met.
After a Monday that will go down in history as “the day nothing happened,” finally we may have a bit of excitement tonight as the Met broadcasts on Sirius and the web-based Listen Live. The occasion is the season premiere of La Fille du Régiment featuring Nino Machaidze and Lawrence Brownlee, with that lovely, litigious…
Here’s a new idea La Cieca hopes will meeting with the approval of you, the cher public: a schedule of chats for the upcoming month, centered around the Met’s Saturday afternoon broadcasts and the “Listen Live” features during the week. Comments and addenda are, as always, welcome.
La Cieca (illustration courtesy of the Wall Street Journal) invites you, the cher public, to enjoy a chat tonight during the prima of Gounod’s Faust from the Met.
Our Own Betsy (seen at left in an “unretouched” photo) declares, “Good evening, horror-lovers, and welcome to Tales from the Box. This is your Olde Box-Keeper with a gruesome fewsome to feed your screamin’ Mimìs. Tonight we pay tribute to the upcoming prima at the Met of Fausit, in which an old man pays for…
Miss Bobolink accepts the challenge: It’s Margaret-and-Will Day!
The Handelian hilarity begins in just half an hour, cher public, so tune in to the Met’s Listen Live page and find your place in the parlor of La Casa della Cieca.
Since our usual (and always welcome) catalog of webcast radio opera is temporarily interrupted this week (get well soon, Betsy!), La Cieca offers as an alternative a video presentation that will become available at 2:00 PM EST (20:00 CET): Enescu’s Oedipe, from La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels.
“Due to illness,” Betsy Ann Bobolink is “unable” to “perform,” so the role of chat coordinator will be taken by Cesar Romero‘s bastard grandson Mervyn (not pictured), who thanks you for your indulgence.
And standing in the door of La Casa della Cieca (pictured) was little Betsy Ann Bobolink, who, instead of lisping “Trick or treat!”, drawled affectedly, “In the spirit of mutual respect and commonality that so pervades our modern society, and has even at times crept onto these pages, here’s what’s available for listening (and chatting)…”
It is with great disappointment that Betsy Ann Bobolink (second from right) must cancel this week’s listing of Saturday opera performances, however, after listening to seven performances of the extremely taxing title role in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena at The Metropolitan Opera, she has been ordered to go on 10 days of vocal rest by her…
“Oh dear, dear, busy, busy busy,” said Bessie Bunny as she slipped into her pinafore. “Everyone will be at the HDTV today, and I shall have to chat all by myself. And look how early things start!
Tonight’s the night, cher public: the prima of the Met’s new Don Giovanni, conducted by fabulous Fabio Luisi and featuring that leading candidate for Einspringer of the Year, Peter Mattei. The fun begins at 7:30, both on Sirius/XM and on the Met’s Live Stream, and the effete will want to sharpen their knives in anticipation…
Oh wow! It’s “Rob Besserer Week” on The Internet. The world’s favorite Silent Opera Star is featured in a wide variety of offerings.
Today Our Own Betsy inaugurates the F-K* rating system (*for “F-fete K-nives.”)
Tonight’s the night, cher public, traditionally the busiest of the year here at parterre. Complete details on the opening night performance of Anna Bolena after the jump.
Our Own Betsy (pictured) shrieks, “WELCOME TO THE DARK SIDE ! A whole afternoon full of really bad bargains with the King of the Underworld.”
The place to be this afternoon is where the chat concerns Il trittico from the Royal Opera House. The triple play broadcast begins at 1:20 EDT and may be heard on the BBC iPlayer. (For other listening options, consult Operashare.) The chat, of course, will flow freely in La Casa della Cieca.
A live webcast of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw from Glyndebourne may divert the parterrians this afternoon. The event commences at 12:45, with a place to discuss the proceedings at La Casa della Cieca.
La Cieca (not pictured) dons her “early adopter” hat once again as she prepares to watch the live telecast of Lohengrin from the Bayreuth Festival on Sunday. It’s an online pay-per-view event (a ticket is €14.90), though the presenters promise it can alternatively be watched “on demand at a time of your own choice between…
The Bayreuth repertory continues today with a revival of the final triumph of the Wolfgang era, Parsifal in the production by Stefan Herheim, conducted by Daniele Gatti. The broadcast begins at 10:00 AM EDT on a variety of stations detailed at Operacast. Naturally La Casa della Cieca will be open for comments and especially questions.
