When La Cieca’s wrong, she’s wrong. She really had no idea until today that Leontyne Price and Luciano Pavarotti shared the operatic stage any time besides that one-off Aida in San Francisco. But when confronted with proof in the form of an mp3, well, she’s going to be the first to admit her error.

on February 15, 2010 at 5:27 PM

Are you ready for a competition, cher public? Well, get ready to don your lexicographer’s caps, because this one is all about the words. 

on February 09, 2010 at 1:15 PM

A confab with our redoubtable Internets Guru Nick Scholl just now resulted in two innovations. First, for those of you who want a quick and handy way to keep up with recent comments, there is now a comments feed button in the left navigation bar just beneath the display of the most recent mots from…

on January 26, 2010 at 11:10 AM

On this upcoming otherwise dreary Tuesday afternoon, La Cieca hopes the cher public will all be figuratively glued to their PCs and Macs for a live web telecast of Werther from the Opéra-Bastille.

on January 24, 2010 at 12:10 PM

Congratulations to Rysanekfreak (pictured), contributor of the best top ten list in La Cieca’s Oughty But Nice competition. The ‘Freak’s somewhat meta compilation was entitled The Top Ten Participants I Have Most Enjoyed Reading on Parterre Box During the Last Decade. Rysanekfreak will receive a $100 gift card from amazon.com. 

on January 16, 2010 at 11:17 AM

At exactly 11:18 this morning, parterre.com posted comment number 100,000.  

on January 07, 2010 at 4:56 PM

The last parterre chat of 2009, Carmen from the Met, begins at 6:00 pm for a 6:30 curtain. 

on December 31, 2009 at 5:55 PM

La Cieca reminds the cher public: you still have one week to come up with a top ten list about the decade from the beginning of 2000 to the end of 2009, with the winner taking home a $100 Amazon gift card.

on December 23, 2009 at 10:20 PM

Here’s the place for all your chatting needs, cher public, during tonight’s broadcast of Elektra from the Met. The official chat begins at 7:45 pm for an 8:00 curtain. 

on December 10, 2009 at 7:00 PM

Cher public, don’t write comments like this one:

on December 02, 2009 at 1:15 PM

New commenter androgenous says, “I think we are getting a little ahead of ourselves by dismissing Calleja. Rehearsals have been long at the MET and I would presume that if Calleja was found to be inadequate they would have thrown him out or at least had a better replacement.” 

on December 01, 2009 at 11:17 AM

“This is the second of 3 postings to You Tube of a complete video of the curtain calls for … Nina Ananiashvili‘s final performance with ABT at the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center in New York….” [

on November 28, 2009 at 8:03 PM

“Not since the young Jolanda Meneguzzer has anyone jumped the pearls in the often-cut Act 12 of this so very kinky work…” An operatic “mad-lib” type fill in the blanks game, after the jump. 

on November 28, 2009 at 6:27 PM

As a warmup for the impending Saturday afternoon Met broadcast chats, La Cieca thought the cher public would like to convene tomorrow in the PM to flex their chatting muscles. Which opera to be broadcast on the internet tomorrow should we hear and discuss?

on November 27, 2009 at 12:51 PM

La Cieca’s misnomered intime No Expert writes: The New Orleans Opera Association likes to describe New Orleans as “America’s First City of Opera,” and it’s true that opera performance has a long history in the Crescent City, dating back to at least 1796 when André Ernest Grétry’s Sylvain was presented.  Since then, New Orleans, and…

on November 25, 2009 at 10:08 AM

La Cieca is delighted to announce the 2009-2010 Saturday afternoon broadcast season brought to you by the Toll Brothers-Metropolitan Opera Radio Network, beginning December 12. For each of these broadcasts, La Cieca will host (or at least leave the doors open for) a chat amongst the cher public.  

on November 23, 2009 at 12:51 PM

“Voglio essere giudicato per la musica e nient’altro che per la musica.” “I want to be judged for my music and nothing but my music.” This phrase, which Mascagni himself wrote to his publisher Sonzogno, is the key to understanding the very essence and existence of L’amico Fritz (1891). Cavalleria rusticana, Mascagni’s first performed opera,…

on November 22, 2009 at 8:30 PM

The results of the Repertory Poll are in!  Squirrel asked which three Old Operas you would most like to see staged at the New New Met, and the people have spoken! Results after the jump.

on November 20, 2009 at 1:06 PM

La Cieca welcomes to the editorial desk of parterre.com new correspondents squirrel and Ercole Farnese, who have already begun their blanket coverage of the New York City opera scene. 

on November 20, 2009 at 11:20 AM

It’s no easy easy task to “re-review” one of the most discussed and scrutinized opera productions of the last few years. Mary Zimmerman’s mise-en-scène of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor has been extensively examined since it was chosen to inaugurate the 2007/08 season of the Metropolitan Opera, provoking very mixed reactions both from the professional critics…

on November 18, 2009 at 8:59 PM

Attached you will find the song lineup for last night’s Aprile Millo recital, though as the saying goes, there were some changes to the printed program. The first half went more or less as planned, though after the R. Strauss a man exiting the auditorium tripped and fell in the aisle, hit his head on…

on November 18, 2009 at 10:18 AM

Far side of the lobby, near the big picture window overlooking the park.

on November 17, 2009 at 4:26 PM

La Cieca knows the cher public will be intrigued to hear that tomorrow night (Monday, November 16), NYC’s downtown classical music venue Le Poisson Rouge will offer a screening of Cecilia Bartoli in a live concert, filmed September 10, 2009. Meanwhile, in honor of this cinematic event, your doyenne is launching a parterre competition for…

on November 15, 2009 at 9:02 PM

Is it just me, or does this seem like using From the House of the Dead as a club to beat a dead horse?

on November 14, 2009 at 8:09 PM