Readers of parterre.com are, La Cieca calculates, about six weeks ahead of the curve, so your doyenne figures you are ready to hear what will likely be a major scoop in the New York Times a few days prior to Halloween. It’s about the technical rehearsals for the Met’s season opener Das Rheingold, and what is…
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When Peter Gelb really wants an artist at the Met, he pulls out all the stops. La Cieca hears that Bryn Terfel, on his way back to New York after a brief visit with his family back in Wales, arrived at the airport in the UK this morning only to discover he left his passport…
Finally, the background to the story that rocked the operatic world earlier this summer. Peter Stein withdrew from the Met’s Boris Godunov “because he felt offended by his treatment at the United States Consulate in Berlin when he applied for a work visa and by a lack of sympathy from Peter Gelb, the Met’s general…
La Cieca’s spy tells her that Maestro Levine returned to the Met today for a coaching session with the cast of Das Rheingold.
La Cieca hears that Renée Fleming will yet again grace the stage of the Metropolitan with a new role in 2015. The production will be staged by Susan Stroman.
La Cieca is told that at least three productions at the Met this year will be shorn of an accustomed intermission: Simon Boccanegra, The Queen of Spades and La traviata will all be done in “two-act” versions, each with but a single interval.
As perhaps you know, if there’s anyone Norman Lebrecht hates more than opera singers and superstar conductors, it’s artists’ managers. So imagine his glee when he got his mitts on an email “leaked… in the dark of night” detailing “the balance of terror that prevails between a soloist and the person who supposedly has his…
La Cieca hears that the Hildegard Behrens Foundation will be launched today, the first anniversary of the death of the German dramatic soprano. First activities of the group will include bestowing grants on the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program and the YOA Orchestra of the Americas.
La Cieca just heard that Stephen Costello goes on tonight (i.e., in just a few hours) in Roméo et Juliette at the Salzburg Festival opposite Anna Netrebko. He’s jumping in for Piotr Beczala, who, if you ask Norman Lebrecht, is probably malingering with a South Seas cutie.
La Cieca has just heard (from no less a source than Sarah Billinghurst herself!) a tidbit that will no doubt interest Daniel Stephen Johnson among many others. It seems that the Met will produce Prince Igor in 2013 with Valery Gergiev (naturally) conducting and Dmitri Tcherniakov directing. The Prince himself will be Ildar Abdrazakov.
La Cieca hears that the Met has just freed up about 60 storage containers in their production storage facility in New Jersey, disposing of 14 old productions including such venerable classics as the Robert O’Hearn Hansel and Gretel, the Beni Montresor Gioconda and the Franco Zeffirelli Falstaff.
La Cieca hears that a big axe just fell in the marketing department over at Sterling Cooper Draper Gelb. Look for a new director to be hired from outside the company.
UPDATE: The news breaks today, and yes, it’s Debbie, but no, it’s not Shirtless Nathan. Letting his defenses down in the role of Frank Butler at Glimmerglass will be Rod Gilfry. (Meanwhile, Mr. Gunn will continue his exploration of the esoteric Blusenrolle fach by role-debuting Eugene Onegin in Cincinnati.)
Departing Wiener Staatsoper General Director Ioan Holender has signed a two-year agreement to act as consultant to the Met. La Cieca speculates: is he replacing the less than effectual Eva Wagner-Pasquier? [Die Presse]
La Cieca hears that Opera Orchestra of New York’s 2010-2011 season will represent a step up from last two years of stopgap recitals as well as a step back from the three-opera seasons of yore.
La Cieca has heard that, not to be outdone by Peter Gelb‘s discovery of hot young directors like Luc Bondy and Patrice Chéreau, NYCO’s George Steel is boldly leaping forward into the 20th century by signing up Peter Sellars for a series of productions. In other music news, everyone down at Danceteria is just wild…
La Cieca has just heard from one of her habitually infallible moles that the refitting of the Met’s stages for the Robert Lepage Ring began today.
La Cieca has it on good authority that the new music director for the Santa Fe Opera will be Frédéric Chaslin (not pictured), who will preside over a 2011 season featuring Faust, La Boheme, Vivaldi’s Griselda, Wozzeck, and (you guessed it) The Last Savage.
La Cieca just heard that Diana Damrau has canceled her engagement in Hamlet with the Washington National Opera. Heading the “star-studded” cast for this production will now be Liam Bonner / Michael Chioldi, TBA, Samuel Ramey, Elizabeth Bishop and John Tessier.
La Cieca hears from a reliable source that James Valenti is the 2010 Richard Tucker Award winner.
Early reports indicate that Rolando Villazón was back in form last night for his return to the stage in L’elisir d’amore at the Vienna Stage Opera.
As La Cieca indicated previously, Francesca Zambello (center) is going to add the notch of General and Artistic Director of Glimmerglass Opera to her already bulging belt. [NYT]
La Cieca is informed that tomorrow’s final dress rehearsal of Hamlet is as closed as closed can be: covers, Met staff and a few handpicked guests of Peter Gelb are the only humans to be allowed in the auditorium as the Thomas is teched. It’s natural enough, since — as we all know — the…
La Cieca has just heard from a generally reliable source that one of the principal artists has withdrawn from all performances of Attila at the Met. We’ve emailed the company’s press office for confirmation of the rumor.
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