The hole truth
Finally the reason for all that screaming at La Scala begins to emerge.
gay gay gay gay gay
You’re the pants on a Roxy usher
Count on the New York Times to include in a photo caption all the information you really wanted to know.
Gay cowboys rejoice!
During the Munich Opera Festival performances of Giacomo Puccini’s Manon Lescaut (28th and 31st of July 2015) Kristine Opolais will replace Anna Netrebko in the title role.
Ennis del Mar! Il storpi montano splende come un santo altar
“The cast, to a member, embraces every chance…”
Butt of the joke
“The deep stirrings that open Brokeback Mountain, the opera, rise up from the bowels of the orchestra…. And those tones are gripping.”
Curious “Case”
“…a perfect marriage of text and music, creating a series of tableau-like scenes, as if Paul’s story is being related through a series of exquisitely posed still photographs…”
Queens logic
Saturday afternoon at 12:30 on WQXR’s magazine show Operavore, our own JJ talks about Mathilde Marchesi and Antony Roth Costanzo discusses his Orlofsky role in the Met’s Fledermaus.
Nitwit Mountain
“Will the actors stepping into the iconic roles live up to the perfection of Heath Ledger and Tob[e]y Maguire?”
Built in a day
“The La clemenza di Tito contract will be offered as a ‘Solo Dancer’ contract and requires 8 physically fit men…. The David McVicar production…”
A disturbance in the force
The scene outside the Met last night (above) and inside (after the jump).
Mavra, don’t ask!
And then she was all like, “Nuh-uh! Igor was so not gay,” and I was all like…
Boys to men
You have only until Sunday to catch the most heart-breaking moments seen on New York City operatic stages this season.
Dream team
Director Daniel Moshel (not pictured) who created the YouTube sensation MeTube, sat down recently—and virtually—to chat with La Cieca (also not pictured.)
Notte e giorno faticar
At last, the quintessential targeted reader of parterre.com has been identified.
A boozy short leave
After 23 years, the Queen of Carthage has finally made it to Manhattan.
Closet drama
I have a confession to make about Britten’s opera Billy Budd: I don’t like it very much.”
Abs of a Soldier
La Cieca has obtained this photo of Thomas Hampson headlining Camouflage Night at Powerhouse, uh, rehearsing for Heart of a Soldier at the San Francisco Opera. You can tell the scene is Northern Rhodesia in 1962, because that is where the British military first started offering complimentary personal training packages to their troops.
You will, David, you will
La Cieca hears that parterre fave David Daniels will get all eponymous and stuff for a world premiere opera entitled Oscar, based on the life of Oscar Wilde, for Santa Fe Opera in 2013, with Opera Company of Philadelphia to follow. The work is to boast music by Theodore Morrison and a libretto and stage […]
Hall of shame
“What I find bizarre is the insistence that no one—not the school, not Opera North, not the local education authority—is being homophobic. Instead, we have the strange position that, because the children are of primary-school age, these lines are too difficult and confusing for them.” The lines in question are “Of course I’m queer/That’s why […]
World weary
You only thought the “Brokeback” Eugene Onegin was the gayest possible take on the Tchaikovsky “lyric scenes.” Now, along comes La Cieca’s fave director Stefan Herheim‘s extravagant, transgressive, high-camp symbolist (and about a dozen other adjectives) approach to the work, “gay” in the very best sense of gay sensibility. Video after the jump!
It’s complicated
The ever-alert PR people at the English National Opera (why can’t we have a company like this?) have assembled a “what if?” video to promote Nico Muhly‘s impending Two Boys, and thrown in an admirably scruffy “reality” actor to boot.
Victory, of a sort
The annual Duke of York’s Picturehouse Eurovision Party, which is apparently a gay institution in Brighton, is pre-empted this year because of demand for tickets for the Met’s HD of Die Walküre. [BBC News] (Voigt photo: Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera)
A Multitude of Roberts
“What prevents Company from being the greatest musical ever written (which, given the talents going into it, it certainly could have been) is that there is something central to the work that is false, a cheat.” Our Own JJ (not pictured) reveals his theater queen side in Capital New York.
“Spartans, tonight we dine at Picholine!”
“Greek night at opera canceled due to conflict” [Indiana Daily Student]
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!
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).
