So we may chat about something besides Miss Battle and the Pope, La Cieca offers you a quiz she’s been keeping in the vault for just such an occasion. It’s devised by Our Own Sanford, and it features 12 vocalists performing the “Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5.” Hint: the first voice you hear is that of…
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In all the publicity surrounding last week’s memorials to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a far more put-upon martyr has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media. Celebrated freedom fighter Franco Zeffirelli is making veiled suggestions (through a “friend”) that, should the Met mothball such “masterpieces” as his 20-year-old Tosca production, supporters of the octogenarian…
UPDATE:Â Be sure to join Commie-Winning Doyenne La Cieca for what is sure to be an historical webchat tonight beginning at 6:45 pm. According to an announcement on the Met’s website, tonight’s performance of Tristan und Isolde featuring (together! for the first time!) Ben Heppner and Deborah Voigt will be streamed live over RealPlayer. In…
This last-minute jump-in moves forward Robert Dean Smith‘s Met debut by two seasons. His official bow will be in a revival of Die Frau ohne Schatten in December 2009.
Cher public, La Cieca hopes you will join her tonight for a live chat during the Sirius and RealNetworks transmission of the Metropolitan Opera’s Ernani. Since the opera begins at 8:00, the chat room will open at 7:45.
La Cieca has just exited the season preview for the Met’s 08-09 season (no, she was not thrown out, she left of her own volition) and here’s what’s up.
… well, not tonight, actually, but on Saturday afternoon, when La Cieca once more will convene the faithful for a live chat on the topic of the Met broadcast of Manon Lescaut. Now, honestly cher public, how was La Cieca to resist? You’ve already read Our Own JJ‘s reaction to the performances of Karita Mattila…
Le cher public have spoken! La Cieca is delighted to have hosted yet another of her popular chat sessions, this one devoted to your choice, this afternoon’s broadcast of La traviata from the Royal Opera.
For no particular reason (oh, all right, she wants to try out some new software) La Cieca would like to have a little informal chat with her cher public this afternoon (Saturday) during the broadcast. Oh, but wait a moment! Which broadcast? With all the selections available on internet radio, your doyenne will have to…
Your doyenne didn’t even make it through the first paragraph of this opera-related article: “I’m not a patient person,” Anna Chatterton confesses over a quinoa brownie at a Toronto coffee shop… A female version of Don Giovanni by a veganess composer? It just doesn’t sound, well, promising, now does it?
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…
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:…
The Volpethon is about to start in real time, but parterre.com’s online discussion of the WQXR broadcast will begin promptly at 7:45. Simply click on the “Chat Now” button in the right toolbar to join the discussion. (Note you will need Java enabled in order for the chat program to work. If you need more…
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…
This week’s podcasts feature a reprise performance (the 1977 Turandot starring Luciano Pavarotti, Montserrat Caballe and Leona Mitchell) with all new chatter from La Cieca. In the current episode, she yaks about the Volpe Farewell Gala and poses yet another of “The Enigmas of La Cieca.” It’s all at Unnatural Acts of Opera, of course.
Last week, as you’ll recall, our Unnatural Opera was Die Frau Ohne Schatten, one of the most grandiose and over-the-top works ever to grace the stage. La Cieca thought her public’s palate could stand a little cleansing, so this time around we will hear a more intimate work, Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. This performance is from…
The only thing better than knowing that a singer has had the greatest Sternstunde of her career is having that performance documented. Montserrat Caballe‘s Norma at Orange, for example, which is one of truly must-have DVDs for any true opera fanatic. Now, Dame Gwyneth Jones has had many great nights in her amazing career, but…
Everyone’s favorite Kiwi songbird, Dame Kiri te Kanawa, is being sued by an Australian promoter because she didn’t show for a series of crossover concerts. The diva was to appear opposite Oz pop star John “The Voice” Farnham, whom she found overly chatty onstage. Says Farnham, “[Dame Kiri] is probably not used to an audience…
La Cieca hears that performances of Medea featuring Anna Caterina Antonacci this summer at the Chatelet will be taped for eventual DVD release. The production is from Toulouse, where la Antonacci won rapturous reviews for her first incarnation of Cherubini’s antiheroine.
All right, boys, get your bold-faced fonts out. It seems that at Oprah Winfrey‘s “Legends Ball,” none other than Leontyne Price asked specially to meet fellow guest/legend Mariah Carey. La Carey (who admits that at first she thought the diva mistook her for someone else) reports that Lee chatted with her about her music and…
Just imagine! The legend herself, Anja Silja taking time out of a busy rehearsal schedule (and despite her concern about the orchestra, problematic in early runthroughs)—to talk to parterre box. I confess I imagined she would be at least a little bit like her character of Emilia Marty—cynical, burned out, impatient. What a surprise, then,…
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