Diana Damrau and Joseph Calleja presented an uneven program in a lavish setting this weekend in the most recent entry in the Met’s concert series.
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Bellini’s Norma Monday evening didn’t at all improve on the production it was replacing.
The Broad Stage presented Joseph Calleja in their Celebrity Opera Series May 10 with a concert called A Tribute to Mario Lanza.
La Cieca hears that Joseph Calleja will sing Pollione opposite the Norma of Anna Netrebko at the Met for opening night 2017.
That Placido Domingo and James Levine, the Met’s inexorable septuagenarians, would team up yet again—on April Fools’ Day, no less—for a revival of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra occasioned an uncomfortable degree of doubt and dread.
Met press office: Salvatore Cordella will sing Edgardo in this evening’s performance of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, replacing Joseph Calleja, who is ill.
“’They’re young… they’re in love… and they kill people’ goes the tagline for the 1968 film Bonnie and Clyde, but the slogan could apply almost as well to the outlaw pair at the center of the Metropolitan Opera’s white-hot revival of Massenet’s Manon.”
Wednesday brought the Met’s “real” season opener, an indelible, indispensable night at the opera: a starry revival of Verdi’s Macbeth crowned by Anna Netrebko’s demented Lady.
When Norman Lebrecht is declaring on an almost daily basis that classical music is dead, it’s perhaps heartening that four of today’s prominent tenors have recently released what might be called fluff/vanity albums.
Tenors Bryan Hymel (pictured) and Joseph Calleja redeem otherwise routine Puccini revivals at the Met, says Our Own JJ in the New York Observer.
Starting right this minute, Lucia di Lammermoor starring Diana Damrau and Joseph Calleja, webcast by Sonostream!
La Cieca’s sources tell her that a planned revival of Faust at the Met in the fall of 2014 has been canceled, because who wants to see that ugly thing again, or else the leading lady didn’t feel like singing it, whichever.
UPDATE, Tuesday, 7:45 AM: The Met sent out a press release at 1:27 AM New York time today announcing major changes to its roster for the tour of Japan this month. La Cieca has revised the following gossip item (which appeared at 11 PM last night) to reflect the Met’s confirmations.
Quoth the Met press office: “Piotr Beczala will sing the Duke in Verdi’s Rigoletto on Thursday, January 27, replacing Joseph Calleja who is ill.”
It’s been rumored, but you know how La Cieca feels about rumors. Anyway, here’s some solid proof that Joseph Calleja has been engaged for the Met’s new production of Les Contes d’Hoffmann set for a December 3, 2009 opening.
Is it just me, or does Joseph Calleja sound simply amazing? La Cieca asks: is there a better lyric tenor out there today?
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