The rich are different from you and me
Whether you love the 2018 Berlin Staatsoper Tristan and Isolde depends on what you think the opera is about.
dmitri tcherniakov
The naked truth
Highlights of the Metropolitan Opera’s 2019-2020 season, according the always intriguing Met Future Wiki.
Nunsense
A Court of Appeals in Paris has ordered BelAir Classiques to remove from its catalog a video recording of Dialogues des carmélites as staged by Dmitri Tcherniakov for the Bayerische Staatsoper.
Battle of the network tsars
For all their orchestral and vocal attractions, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s 15 operas are rarities in the West.
The Met: What is to be done?
Coming as Peter Gelb did from the music industry, opera lovers hoped that he would display a more distinctive knack for casting and an improved talent pipeline than Joe Volpe offered during the waning years of his tenure.
Slavas of New York
Even when the opera performed is a masterpiece, a truly superb opera performance is exceedingly rare.
No one will be seated during the controversial “Rolling on Molly” sequence
First video snippets of the new Prince Igor are now live on the Met’s website.
Come to the unstable
How, then, to explain the perplexing performance last Friday night of Falstaff, Mr. Levine’s first new production since his return?
Blonde, bombshell
So we may all be on the same page as we discuss, following the jump is the video of the December 7 Traviata from La Scala.
Bo, concept
The surprises, and puzzles, of Dmitri Tcherniakov‘s production of Don Giovanni in this DVD of a performance at the Aix-en-Provence festival begin before a note has been played or the curtain has risen.
We’ll settle that tonight!
La Cieca has been wining, dining and otherwise wooing her Met connection (pictured above) and he (or is it she?) has come across with some tidbits about upcoming seasons at Casa Gelb.
Book club
La Cieca hears that the opening night of La Scala’s 2013 season will feature a new production of La traviata starring Diana Damrau and Piotr Beczala, directed by… no, not Franco Zeffirelli, but Dmitri Tcherniakov.
Our retrospection will now be all to the future
La Cieca predicts you won’t be seeing any puritans at the Met next season, except of course for the ones who slouch around during intermission hissing, “You call that a trill?”
Scent of mystery
La Cieca has been sniffing around her generally reliable (and fragrant) sources, and she thinks she has pieced together a list of the dozen operas to be featured in the 2013-2014 season of “The Met: Live in HD.”
Out of the cradle endlessly rocking
No, not a Regie quiz—though that feature will return soon enough now that the season is up and running—but rather an image from the new Dmitri Tcherniakov production of Jenufa for the Opernhaus Zürich.
I’ll see you in my streams
Coming up over the next two weekends: a pair of streamed video performances sure to provide plenty of chat fodder.
Huis Clos
That most operatic of all operas, Il trovatore, has been done many ways, but here’s a first: the warhorse as bottle episode.
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).