La Cieca invites you to join guest host Sanford and the cher public for a friendly little webchat tonight, March 2, 2009 during the broadcast on Sirius and RealNetworks of Bellini’s La sonnambula live from the Metropolitan Opera. Please check back at parterre.com at 7:45 PM to access the chat login screen.
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.
Courtesy of a particularly dear member of the cher public, La Cieca brings to you the printable Met Season Calendar for 2009-2010. Download PDF.
Two weeks later, and the drollery just keeps a-drippin’ in the competition to provide some explanation for a rather curious opera scene depicting a lady apparently trying to drown a chambermaid in a hotel bathtub. The snappiest comeback, in La Cieca’s opinion, issued from wotan_in_inman, “We’ll disguise ourselves to fool both the Count and Figaro.…
Sharp-eyed reader Sadie Salome writes: It seems I was the only one spent much of last night’s letter scene peering through her binoculars at Karita Mattila‘s fine acting, because I see no report on your site of last night’s mishap (and if it isn’t on your site, then it obviously hasn’t been reported anywhere!) As you…
Let’s talk about chest: theories, recollections, examples, caveats… All about chest, in fact. To start the conversational ball rolling, here’s what some celebrated mid 20th century divas have to say about the subject of chest voice. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/j2hd_2m1qXE” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] Chest nut Charlie Handelman has so much to say on “voce di petto”…
La Cieca reminds her cher public that the always inventive Gotham Chamber Opera returns this week with a rare production of Haydn’s L’isola disabitata. Mark Morris directs the non-dancing proceedings, with Neal Goren conducting the “typical early classical orchestra.” Castaways include Takesha Meshé Kizart, Valerie Ogbonnaya, Vale Rideout and budding barihunk Tom Corbeil. According to…
Following in the footsteps of Harrison Birtwistle‘s Minotaur and Thomas Adès’ The Tempest (which featured the half-human character Caliban), the Royal Opera House has commissioned yet another opera based upon a legendary monster. The as-yet-untitled oeuvre is the life story of Anna Nicole Smith, with music by Mark-Anthony Turnage (The Silver Tassie) and libretto by…
La Cieca is happy to announce that you, cher public, have set a new record for pageviews in a single day here at parterre.com. On February 6, dear people, you viewed this little blog a whopping 16,713 times. Over the past 12 months parterre.com has averaged around 1,500 vistors per day, totalling more than 2.6…
The Met’s $25 weekend ticket program this week features Adriana Lecouvreur. Though La Cieca is naturally remaining mum about this revival until Our Own JJ‘s review appears, she’s more than interested to hear what you, the cher public, think. So if you can get into the Friday night performance via the lottery (or any other…
La Cieca would like to assure all of you that, though it may sound like it, she is not hosting the Opera Quiz today!
A member of the cher public reports that a note in the program for tonight’s concert performance of the Der Rosenkavalier in Paris reads: “Renee Fleming wears a dress by John Galliano created specially for the Gala Opening of the Metropolitan Opera on September 22, 2008.”
This is from last night. La Cieca should note that she was not at this performance (1/29/2009), but a member of the cher public armed with an iPhone was. The clip is presented for the purposes of discussion. Tombe La Cieca will begin the discussion by noting that the scene is performed down a half…
The operatives were busy over the midnight hours: “Act 3 was a mixed bag. The opening showed Villazon in much better form, with solid phrasing. The Mad Scene started out beautiful, Netrebko spinning out haunting legato. She was completely involved and engaged. Then she fell apart at the flute solo, sounding under supported and wavering…
UPDATE: And now the reactions to Act 2: “Villazon continued to struggle. Pushed upper register and passaggio. High notes he seems to accomplish (or in some cases misses) by sheer will of force. Aside from a beautiful legato in the sextet, his voice is very worrisome. Netrebko has bloomed in this act, acuti seemingly in…
La Cieca hears that tonight’s Lucia at the Met will be the criterion for deciding whether one or both of the leads might be replaced for the final two performances of the run including the HD telecast February 7. La Cieca, alas, cannot be in the theater tonight, drat that pesky root canal, so she…
Cher public, a number of you have written asking how you can post links to YouTube videos in your comments. La Cieca is continuing to research the situation, but here’s a preliminary solution. When you are copying and pasting the URL of the YouTube video into your comment, omit the http:// , beginning the address…
For those who are interested, the following clip will help establish the tonality of Rolando Villazòn‘s final aria last night. Rolando’s key (This clip was sent to La Cieca by a member of the cher public who prefers to remain anonymous. The clip is provided for discussion purposes only.)
All the way from exotic Portland, Operaman writes: Yesterday I attended the Met HD transmission of Orfeo ed Euridice and, once I have told you my reactions and feelings about this show, I cannot wait to hear what members of your cher public who saw or heard it have to say about it. And I…
Far too easy, or at least far too straightforward, was last week’s Regie quiz. From the very beginning Lindoro and many others recognized Pfitzner’s Palestrina. The very handsome production was seen recently at the Bavarian State Opera. Christian Stückl was the director and Stefan Hageneier the designer. Is this week’s quiz a trifle more challenging?…
La Cieca wishes her dear, dear, dear friend many happy returns, and reminds her cher public that Charlie’s podcasts (gleaned from his vastissimo collection) are about the best opera you can find anywhere on the web.
La Cieca’s dear friend Donald Collup discovers and conflates operatic “oddities” into a popular series of party discs collectively entitled “Shall I Go On?” Here, ahead even of Mr. Collup, La Cieca presents the first notable Oddity of 2009, which was forwarded to your doyenne by a member of the cher public who prefers to…
Before we start our daily Steelathon, La Cieca wants to ask you, cher public: which nickname should your doyenne use in future for the NYCO’s new honcho: “Two-Face” or “The Man of Steel?” Okay, so our first story of the day is an editorial in the New York Times welcoming, well, you know who to…
Given the probable continued volume of news concerning the New York City Opera, its new General Manager, and the various melodramas thereto, La Cieca will institute a new policy starting today. A single post will serve to anchor all the NYCO news for the day, with updates as needed. This will also help to centralize…
In what will probably stand in history as her most wrong-headed judgment call ever, on December 24 La Cieca concluded that George Steel would not accept an offer from the New York City Opera. Your doyenne cited two reasons for her position: first, that the job wouldn’t have much in the way of art to…
