The one and only Miss Kathleen Battle (currently on a recital tour climaxing in a return to Carnegie Hall) now has a state-of-the-art website!
143 comments
Sponsored
Win tickets to Piotr Beczala at Carnegie Hall!
pb—with our friends at Carnegie Hall—is giving away two tickets to PB’s December concert. Enter now!
 Controversial soprano Tiziana Fabbricini sings her first Adriana Lecouvreur earlier this month. For some reason, the “Bajazet” monologue is given in . . . the original French? A French translation of the Italian librettese? No matter, once the singing begins, we get a glimpse of that utterly vital but increasingly rare quality — the sacro…
Cher public, you have striven valiantly but no one of you has managed to accomplish what was most likely an impossible task: the identification of 14 singers of Violetta in only a few notes. As a group mind, though, you came awfully close. And so, to put an end to this particular source of stress,…
“I always cite the opera divas, like Leontyne Price. I mean, of course I’m an old fart, so I go back to these people who aren’t around anymore. But Leontyne Price and Marilyn Horne and Beverly Sills, I mean, they were glamour queens, and they were women who were not a size two …. It’s…
Dear Beau has been working his fingers to the bone editing together yet of his confounding “Casta diva” compilations. For this “easier” quiz, he has selected Normas represented, and La Cieca thought that this time around the competition part of the quiz might be best carried out in the comments section. First comment with all…
Electric Elaine Eliane Coelho chews the scenery, leaves blood on the stage, and if there are any pregnant women in the audience, probably turns their fetuses gay right on the spot, all in just one scene from the gloriously gory melodrama from Carlos Gomes, Maria Tudor. Since YouTube embedding is acting a little odd this morning,…
The furore in New Zealand over Dame Kiri te Kanawa‘s apparent criticism of Kiwi popera divette Hayley Westenra may now be on a downward slope after peaking earlier this weekend.
La Cieca is sure that her cher public will not want to miss Sunday morning’s (4:30 AM) screening of the camp classic Yes, Giorgio. This 1982 crossover attempt by Luciano Pavarotti (from tenor to matinee idol) must have sounded like a good idea at the time, but, fortunately for music lovers, the film flopped mightily,…
So La Cieca thinks it’s time to declare this officially: Kiri te Kanawa has become a mean old bat. The downbeat diva, most recently in the headlines for her controversial anti-panty policy, has gone and dished Hayley Westenra, who apparently is a New Zealand popera singer. (Well, to be perfectly fair, “apparently” isn’t so accurate…
The solution to the “D’amor al dolce impero” quiz … Maria Callas Renata Scotto Katia Ricciarrelli Christina Deutekom Adelaide Negri Renee Fleming Jennifer Larmore Christine Weidinger Nelly Miricioiu Maja Tabatadze Cecilia Gasdia Montserrat Caballe
It is La Cieca’s sad duty to publish the following example of “This Diva Looks Like That Diva.”
UPDATE: We have a winner! Francesco guesses all 12 divas correctly at 2:09 AM today, narrowly defeating Pedro, who achieved another perfect score only three hours later. Congratulations to both gentlemen. The rest of you may continue to play just for fun, and La Cieca will post the solution to the quiz on Friday. The…
La Cieca is happy to report that you, cher public, have made the Amazon Associates Program a rousing success, generating considerable income for the improvement and expansion of parterre.com. Over the past four months, you have purchased literally hundreds of items, of which the most popular can be seen right after the jump:
On February 9, Eva Marton joined the very select sorority of sopranos who have sung all three leading female roles in Elektra when she made her role debut as Klytämnestra at Liceu in Barcelona. (Come to think of it, there are only two other members of that club, Dame Gwyneth Jones and Leonie Rysanek!) La…
Well, it says so right there on Page Six, you know it must be true: Michael Stipe injures his leg in a go-carting accident, The Duchess of York is accused of destroying the Brazilian coastline, and THE hipster intelligentsia flocked to Brooklyn Tuesday night to catch Patrick Stewart in Macbeth at BAM’s opening gala. Mikhail…
To you, cher public, from your doyenne, via Eleanor Steber. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/9UvBwKHsk8U” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
Actually, La Cieca is not surprised at all that Aprile Millo is a fan of Amy Winehouse.
La Cieca is once more available for dancing in the streets and shouting from the housetops for the (admittedly off-topic) reason that the Technicolor musical campfest Torch Song has made its long-awaited debut on DVD. Only in 1953 — with the Red Scare, the threat of nuclear annihilation and the growing threat from televsion bewildering studio exectives —…
Wondrous Wenarto is back and more bloodthirsty than ever. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/f876_Xw-LYA” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] The Wenarto interpretation is a worthy addition to the YouTube classics by Rysanek, Zauscher.Â
In this operatic adaptation of the Bette Davis classic Dead Ringer, sparks fly when twin sisters Margaret Phillips DeLorca (Grace Bumbry) and Edith Phillips (Grace Bumbry) meet again after 20 years! [kml_flashembed movie=”http://uk.youtube.com/v/8oRpMGQmyG8″ width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] Again, La Cieca extends her gratitude to the amazing coloraturafan.
but she can be a little mysterious a times. The cher public averaged seven out of 11 answers correct on our Casta Diva Quiz, with a four-way tie-up for first position. (By which, La Cieca should perhaps add, she means that four contestants had exactly 10 correct answers, not that your doyenne resorted to some…
A recently rediscovered telecast of Il trovatore from Covent Garden in the fall of 1964 features the Azucena of Giulietta Simionato. This is the only video record of the legendary mezzo in one of her greatest roles. (La Cieca is unutterably indebted to the YouTubers felipecunha and coloraturafan for alerting her to this magnificent document.)
Sponsored
Win tickets to Piotr Beczala at Carnegie Hall!
pb—with our friends at Carnegie Hall—is giving away two tickets to PB’s December concert. Enter now!
Sponsored
Reach your audience through parterre box!
parterre box, “the most essential blog in opera” (New York Times), is now booking display and sponsored content advertising for the 2023-2024 season. Join Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Warner Classics and many others in reaching your target audience through parterre box.
"*" indicates required fields