“Magdalena Kozená sings Cole Porter”
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.
“Norma non mente!”
“Part cabaret confessional, part homage to the Great American Songbook…”
A semi-staging of Dido and Aeneas starring Broadway divas and frequent collaborators Kelli O’Hara and Victoria Clark seemed a screwy idea at best.
Tony Award winners Kelli O’Hara (The King and I) and Victoria Clark (Gigi) will reunite onstage in a new production of the opera Dido and Aeneas.
Identically-coiffed artistes Klaus Florian Vogt and Renée Fleming prove conclusively that American musical theater is not an international language.
“This summer, [Susan] Graham will cap her season in Paris by making her role debut as Anna in The King and I at the Théâtre du Châtelet (June 13-29).”
The crossover album: a hint that that an artist has either exhausted all the repertory at her command and owes her record label a new release or that her waning vocal resources really shouldn’t be taxed much further than an octave.
Emma Thompson will portray Mrs. Lovett in the New York Philharmonic’s staged production of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
A couple of tweets from Thomas Hampson detailing some grisly-sounding future projects.
La Cieca is always delighted when Met stars “cross over” into more popular genres of entertainment.
La Cieca just glimpsed this “save the date” from NYCO’s development department.
La Cieca (pictured, left) celebrated her birthday early this year when she unexpectedly received the perfect gift—the following press release.
Awesome Anna Netrebko wraps her considerable talent around a the Europop hit “La Voix.” Note the correct use of hair extensions (without those ridiculous “rocker chick” bangs) and the plain but striking red gown.
“Internationally acclaimed opera singer and arts administrator Plácido Domingo, General Director of Washington National Opera (WNO), will lead a group of his protégés in a concert performance of Verdi’s Rigoletto on August 2, 2010, at Beijing’s Reignwood Theater…. The concert performance marks the first time that Domingo, a legendary tenor who has recently made highly…
… and the hope gets darker and darker as La Scoopenda performs Leonard Cohen‘s “Hallelujah.”
“On her new album, Dark Hope, opera star Renee Fleming takes a ‘visit to a new, parallel universe.’ … Dark Hope finds ‘The People’s Diva’ covering songs by Muse, Arcade Fire, The Mars Volta, Death Cab For Cutie, Leonard Cohen, Band Of Horses, and more.”
Remember “Toi et Moi,” the pectacular music video from which the above image is grabbed? Well, the terrific twosome who brought you that indelible video and perhaps slightly more delible audio, Dmitri Hvorostovsky and Igor Krutoi, have done it again. Their newest collaboration, “a once-in-a-lifetime musical event” called “Deja Vu” arrives at Radio City Music…
Katherine Jenkins, C-list Britpop has-beens… and Rolando Villazón in a ginormous jewfro. No, this does not bode well.
Remember Dragana Jugovic del Monaco? Oh, come on, who could ever forget? Well, she’s back (or was back, anyway, as of 1999) for the following crossover effort with a pop singer who La Cieca supposes must be billed as something like “The Ozzy Osbourne of the Republic of Serbia.”
Dame Kiri te Kanawa‘s cousin (who calls the opera diva “auntie because of the age difference”) is promoting “Australia’s first pole-dancing championships.”
People often come up to me and say, La Cieca, “Who do you think will be the next Renée Fleming?” Well, all, right, that doesn’t actually happen often, or even rarely. In fact, it doesn’t happen at all. But be that as it may, La Cieca has found “the next Renée Fleming,” or at least…
This is crossover that stops just short of crossdressing.
From that rarest and most coveted of all camp crossover efforts, the Sylvia Sass disco album:
