A crestfallen member of the cher public forwards to La Cieca this disheartening announcement from John Banta, Director of Special Events for the Met: Thank you for your interest in attending the Metropolitan Opera’s Sneak Peek of the New RING Production on Friday, May 8th at 3:15pm. Unfortunately, due to a scheduling conflict, we have…
“Instead of pondering moral issues, the audience marvels that styrofoam can be made to look so much like granite.” Our Own JJ reviews the Met’s Ring in the New York Post. For the convenience of the cher public, La Cieca will point out that the Post has a section for comments following the review.
Following is the schedule for the Sunday afternoon/evening listening/viewing marathon. Chat away in the comments section, cher public!
Cher public, here’s the schedule for group listening/viewing of the MetPlayer on Saturday and Sunday:
Now, cher public, you have the chance to vote which of your nominated performances will be included in the upcoming MetPlayer weekend listening (and viewing party). You may cast your ballot right after the jump.
As if we ever “came to order” around here! But anyway, La Cieca is throwing the floor open for a Listening and Viewing Orgy next weekend, when the MetPlayer will offer a three-day free preview. MetPlayer offers streaming of over 200 Met broadcasts and telecasts from 1937 to the present, including 20 in HD. The…
“But, as century XXI progresses, the Web is not some branch of tradutuibak scholarly research.” — Alto
As La Cieca intones after the jump (in her newly-found inhuman manner) you can upload a photo (of your favorite diva or divo) and this online gizmo will animate it into a talking Star Trek character. At the end of the animation process, please choose “share” and then “email” so you can send your Trekkified…
[La Cieca invites the cher public to supply a caption to the above photo. And while you’re at it, anyone care to identify the gentleman at right and what opera this is?]
A sharp-eyed member of the cher public writes: I attended a performance of Damnation of Faust (with a magnificent Polenzani and Ketelsen) in St. Louis this past Saturday night. When I arrived, there was Christine Brewer in the lobby looking quite well. No cane, no walker, no crutches, no limp, no nothing. I walked up…
La Cieca hears vague rumors from here and there that there something major is going to happen with New York CIty Opera this week, possibly as early as today. According to an insider over the weekend “wagons [were] circling,” perhaps in reaction to the admission that the company has spent down over 2/3 of its endowment in…
Our previous Regie puzzler was a very non-standard opera indeed, György Ligeti‘s Le Grand Macabre. More standard and equally grand if perhaps less macabre is this week’s Regie quiz after the jump.Â
A member of the cher public who attended last night’s premiere of Verdi’s Macbeth at the Opéra national de Paris filed this report: It was Paris Opera GM Gerard Mortier‘s penultimate opportunity – his term ends in July –  to moon opening night Parisian audiences and he did just that. He flew in bad-boy director…
La Cieca is delighted to announce that you, cher public, have broken yet another record! During the month of March you viewed parterre.com a total of 352,139 times. That’s the highest monthly number of pageviews ever for this site. Just to give you some sense of proportion, that number is more than the population of…
Mrs. John Claggart saw through the balloonery of our most recent Regie quiz, correctly identifying not only the opera Werther but each scene depicted. So, cher public, let’s see how you do with this week’s conundrum.
Many of you (well, a few of you) have expressed an interest in La Cieca’s working process as a journalist. As such, your doyenne thought she would share with you dear people some rare documentary footage of La Cieca’s early days reporting and writing opera gossip. Or, in other words: this, cher public, is how…
For the first time in, well, quite a while really, La Cieca reminds the cher public that your donations help support the various goings-on here at parterre.com. Won’t you take a moment to click on the PayPal link below? We now return you to our unscheduled programming.
La Cieca realizes she hasn’t devised a contest for you competitive members of the cher public in, oh, ages. So she’s going to direct you to the Omniscient Mussel blog, where the game is to offer an opera plot synopsis via Twitter.
La Cieca (not pictured) invites you, cher public, to listen to the broadcast of the Met’s 125th Anniversary Gala (on Sirius or RealNetworks) and comment to your heart’s content! The (projected) program is availabe as a pdf from the Met’s website.
La Cieca has managed to pry the keyboard away from Our Own JJ for a moment to remind her cher public that she does, in fact, still exist, in the shadows as it were. Anyway, your doyenne will attend the Broadway revival of Blithe Spirit tonight and will share with you tomorrow a soupcon or…
UPDATE: The winner of the Turban Competition is the Roberto Alagna photo, submitted by Vanderdecken. The cher public has quite figuratively buried La Cieca in turbans since yesterday, more than 50 in all. Choosing a “best” five was a daunting task, but your doyenne did her best and has determined that her decisions are final.…
As La Cieca hardly thinks she needs tell you, among the attributes of a prima donna necessary to the success of a performance of Adriana Lecouvreur are morbidezza, il sacro fuoco, voce di petto and of course the ability to wear a turban. And surely you do realize that, sad to say, not everyone can pull off a turban.Â
[This caption by rysanekfreak replaces La Cieca’s original, “So it’s agreed: Roberto gets the house in Monte Carlo; Angela gets custody of the gays”.]
La Cieca thanks all you cher public who participated in the live chat during the broadcast of La sonnambula, and a special thanks to featuring your guest host Sanford.
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.
