La Cieca is indebted to those Wellsungs for this idea:Â what’s your birth opera? Or, in other words, which opera (and cast, if applicable) was the Met performing on the day you were born? (You get this information, of course, from the Met Archives Database.) Unfortunately, La Cieca, being a Leo, was born outside the regular…
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.
One of the cher public sent in this tidbit from the recently-published edition of The Letters of Noël Coward: Went to hear Albanese as Manon Lescaut and it was a grave grave mistake on account of she didn’t ought to have attempted it for several reasons. Time’s Wingèd Chariot being the principal one. She sang most…
Your doyenne has added a contact page so you may email her with all your tastiest soupcons!
More years ago than La Cieca would care to say, dear Gertie Dammerung wrote an hilarious parody of the song “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” which La Cieca published in the dimly-remembered print version of parterre box. Time passes. Then, only yesterday, La Cieca received an email from equally dear Hans Lick enclosing an updated version…
Cher public, La Cieca acted with her usual impetuosity last night and migrated the blog to WordPress. For the last couple of months, Blogger has been slower and slower to post to FTP, and their Help Desk might better be called “Desk.” The frustration really peaked late yesterday afternoon when La Cieca got the “fishbone”…
Please bear with La Cieca, cher public as she is experimenting with WordPress. Don’t worry, the old parterre.com won’t disappear! To read previous postings, please click here.
Well, it had to happen sooner or later, and so it did happen, sometime between last night and tonight. La Cieca has decided she’s taking Roberto Alagna‘s side in The Scandale. Yes, yes, La Cieca hears your gasps and snorts of disbelief and contempt, but you know, cher public, La Cieca is, deep in her…
Those of you cher public who frequent the left coast have probably seen the new Los Angeles Opera production of La traviata, the one that bumps the period of the action forward from the epoch of Alexandre Dumas fils to that of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Well, of course the svelte and lovely Elizabeth Futral looks…
La Cieca has found a few fragments from last night’s performance of Tosca at the ROH — only about 15 minutes of music, but enough, perhaps, to give a hint of the suitability of Angela Gheorghiu for the title role. La Cieca’s take (based on an in-house mike, remember!) is that the Roman diva is…
By now, cher public, you have all heard about the Skandal in Vienna: Olga Borodina was sacked from L’italiana in Algeri (or did she walk out?) because, well, there were a variety of reasons proffered. Short version, though, is that the Staatsoper press office announced “All contracts between Olga Borodina and the Vienna State Opera…
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…
La Cieca, who only yesterday was perpendicular hanging from a cable car, has been annoying San Francisco natives this week by humming the immortal theme song of that city by the bay while strolling her streets. (That’s the Jeanette MacDonald song, not the Tony Bennett number, but that’s not the point here.) Providing a welcome…
Leonie Rysanek sings the final scene from Salome in a performance of the Vienna State Opera on tour in Japan (October 2, 1980). Hans Bierer is Herodes and the conductor is Heinrich Hollreiser. (And remember, cher public, if you’re enjoying this content, visit the Amazon Honor System to show your appreciation!)
Next week, you, mon cher public, along with the rest of le tout New York will of course attend Madame Vera Galupe-Borszkh‘s 20th Annual Farewell Recital at Symphony Space. In preparation for this epochal event, La Cieca hopes you will listen to her interview with Mme. Vera’s alter ego, Ira Siff, on Unnatural Acts of…
The New York Post‘s Clive Barnes is going to blush beet-red when he hears from the publicists (or the lawyers) who handle Placido Domingo. In a review of the Met’s Rigoletto, Barnes refers to PD as “the 72-year-old tenor.” Domingo admits to 65, though some gossips have long sniped that this figure doesn’t add up…
La Cieca hears that one of our most popular and beloved mezzo-sopranos is going to drop the “mezzo” part and push up into a higher Fach. Wouldn’t it be a tragedy if this American artist were to show such poor judgment? A quick look-in at Academy Records this evening revealed a tantalizing assortment of CDs…
La Cieca is just so excited about the new youtube capability that she wants you, cher public, to get in on the act. Do you have a favorite operatic video clip you would like to share with the world (well, with the readers of parterre.com, which amounts to everyone in the world that matters)? Just…
Now (as always) La Cieca is on the prowl for tips on opera-related gossip. We’re talking future casting, hirings and firings, onstage and backstage misbehavior, random acts of charity, deliberate acts of skulduggery, and, well, all those wonderful things that make opera seem like it belongs in the same world with Lindsay Lohan. In order…
Well, it’s that time of year, isn’t it? La Cieca is full to overflowing with the holiday spirit, so full of it, in fact, that she’s going to speak her mind, just as if this were a company party. There are some out there who have forgotten the true meaning of this time of year,…
Here it is, cher public: the Unnatural Acts Gala and Quiz. To listen, just click on the arrow button. (Make sure your speaker volume is turned up, and allow 10 – 15 seconds for the show to start playing.) Listen to the Gala and Quiz! You can also download the mp3 at this direct link.…
Cher public, those of you who have written to La Cieca wondering at the frequency Anthony Tommasini uses the word “strapping” to describe opera singers of the male persuasion — well, wonder no more. According to the New York Times archives, Tony has flogged his favorite modifer no fewer than 44 times in the past…
A few of La Cieca’s cher public wrote in to complain that last week’s podcast, the Beverly Sills farewell gala, offered lots of gala but not much Sills. So we’re remedying that this week on “Unnatural Acts of Opera,” with an all-Sills program featuring music by Handel, Mozart and R. Strauss.
