O stars of wonder, stars of night
A starry (and potentially annual) Christmas gala lights up Carnegie Hall.
gala
Return of the Merolini
On June 16, San Francisco Opera concluded their excellent Centennial Season with a heartfelt 100th Anniversary Concert, featuring a starry cast, three conductors (including current and former Music Directors) and the SF Opera Orchestra and Chorus.
This is a gala day for you
On October 14, 1979 I spent my birthday attending my first all-star opera gala, thrilled at the chance to hear some of the great singers I’d only experienced on LPs, broadcasts or via my pirate reel-to-reel tapes.
The Verdi thing
On Thursday June 30th, San Francisco Opera closed their summer season with a one-night-only special concert celebrating Eun Sun Kim’s first season as the Caroline H. Hume Music Director, in an aptly named concert “Eun Sun Kim Conducts Verdi.”
A riveder le stelle
La Scala opens with an ultra-starry gala.
Virtual gala
Emanuel Ax, Anderson Cooper, Anthony Roth Costanzo, Katie Couric, Renée Fleming, David Foster, Josh Groban, John Lithgow, Kelli O’Hara, Stephen Sondheim, Emma Thompson and John Williams are among the special guests.
A gala day is enough for me
The discussion of the Metropolitan Opera’s “At-Home Gala” set a new record for parterre box articles, with 11,590 pageviews and 1,877 comments!
Queen of the New Year
Although the gold glitter cannons detonated at the end of the act were an ostentatious reminder that this was a celebration of the new year, it seemed that the only words on anyone’s lips as the audience filed out of the theater were “Viva Netrebko!”
Silver lining
Saturday night, Lyric Opera of Chicago gave us a wonderful evening of vocalism in honoring Renée Fleming’s 25th anniversary at Lyric.
Her heart will be blessed with the sound of music and she’ll sing once more
“Renée Fleming herself will sing, of course…”
Fathers’ day
How do we celebrate a long career in opera, particularly one as illustrious as Plácido Domingo‘s?
The party of Lincoln
Recorded on 7 May 2017, 50 Years at Lincoln Center: A Gala Celebration features three dozen Met singers of the present decade, from A(ngela) to Z(eljko).
E avanti a lui russava tutta Roma
The Met got exactly what it asked for: a safely opulent, resolutely unchallenging Tosca that was far from shabby or little but couldn’t have been less shocking
Are the stars out tonight?
This year’s Richard Tucker Music Foundation’s annual gala concert at Carnegie Hall is marginally less starry than last year’s.
Glitter and be gala
Finally, Peter Gelb brings camp back to opera!
Fifty shades of gold
Anticipation of events like the Metropolitan Opera’s 50th Anniversary bash turns me back into the newly opera-soused kid who begged his parents to let him watch the highlights of the Bing Gala on the family color television.
The music, ho!
Here’s where the parterriani will surely gather to hear and to comment upon this evening’s monster gala celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Met’s incumbency at Lincoln Center.
Tucker everlasting
The Richard Tucker Music Foundation’s annual gala promises (note, promises) a particularly glittery roster this year.
All tomorrows shall be as today
For your Wednesday listening enjoyment, here’s a BBC broadcast of the Gala Farewell to Sir David Webster (pictured, left) at the Royal Opera House on July 9, 1970.
Fans de siècle
As if listening live to tonight’s gala Met premiere of Die Fledermaus were not frivolity sufficient unto the end of the calendar year, La Cieca and Jungfer Marianne Leitmetzerin (pictured above, in no particular order) offer an alternative version of Strauss’s operetta for your amusement.
The lady in question
… is Anna Netrebko, performing “Vieni, t’affretta” from Verdi’s Macbeth at tonight’s opening gala at the Mariinsky.
La Cieca, like Nature, abhors a vacuum
“Upon my word,” exclaims La Cieca (pictured at right, in the background), “I could almost swear I see a few empty seats on the other side of theater for the Met’s opening night performance of L’elisir d’amore!”
L’Âge d’Or
A friend of the box just reminded La Cieca that tonight, April 22, 2012 is the 40th anniversary of the farewell gala honoring Sir Rudolf Bing.
Horne aplenty
La Cieca has learned that The Metropolitan Opera Guild will pay tribute to legendary American mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne (right) on Monday, October 31, when stars, fans of opera, and the cream of New York’s society, business, and civic leaders assemble in the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria for the Guild’s 77th Annual Luncheon.
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).
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
