[This article originally appeared in the print zine precursor to this site, one of a series of surveys of live recordings by critic Leila de Lakmé.] Leyla Gencer. The very name is exotic. She was an artist of Turkish ancestry who, during the 1950s and 60s, held her own despite the presence of Maria Callas,…
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Even as La Cieca writes this, that legendary grande dame thespian Zoe Caldwell is treading the boards of the Level “C” rehearsal room at our own little Metropolitan Opera in preparation for her debut with the company as the Duchesse de Krakenthorpe in La Fille du Régiment. (Imagine how impressive she’ll be once she’s in…
Cher public, you have striven valiantly but no one of you has managed to accomplish what was most likely an impossible task: the identification of 14 singers of Violetta in only a few notes. As a group mind, though, you came awfully close. And so, to put an end to this particular source of stress,…
Even a veteran sob sister like La Cieca cannot cover the vast field of opera all by herself, though goodness knows she does her best. But one must give credit where credit is due. As such your doyenne wants to offer her thanks to a journal which is rapidly becoming her source for the best…
The solution to the “D’amor al dolce impero” quiz … Maria Callas Renata Scotto Katia Ricciarrelli Christina Deutekom Adelaide Negri Renee Fleming Jennifer Larmore Christine Weidinger Nelly Miricioiu Maja Tabatadze Cecilia Gasdia Montserrat Caballe
La Cieca is happy to report that you, cher public, have made the Amazon Associates Program a rousing success, generating considerable income for the improvement and expansion of parterre.com. Over the past four months, you have purchased literally hundreds of items, of which the most popular can be seen right after the jump:
Here’s an amusing soupcon from the Bay Area Reporter (where the late lamented Tiger Hashimoto once held sway). In his “Out There” column, Roberto Friedman rips the lid off a mini-scandal at the GayVN Awards. Apparently the nominating committee for this group honoring excellence in the gay porn industry were not listening with their “soul…
More years ago than La Cieca would care to say, dear Gertie Dammerung wrote an hilarious parody of the song “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” which La Cieca published in the dimly-remembered print version of parterre box. Time passes. Then, only yesterday, La Cieca received an email from equally dear Hans Lick enclosing an updated version…
The event that seemed poised to evoke the year’s biggest outpouring of Schadenfreude has finally transpired. The critical response to Angela Gheorghiu‘s first staged Tosca (Royal Opera, Covent Garden, June 13) could best be described as mixed. The diva’s vocal and visual glamour elicited kind words from all the critics, despite general reservations about a…
Twelve years — a quarter of my life! That’s how long I’ve been La Cieca, or, more accurately, that’s how long parterre box has been a part of my life. The lady over there on the right is the reason this all began: Maria Callas, for whose 70th birthday (December 3, 1993) I though it…
It appears that La Cieca has finally acknowledged that there is more to opera than high-voiced divas: tenors can be pretty amazing as well. As such, we’ve declared Mario del Monaco week at Unnatural Acts of Opera. The celebration begins this evening with the first act of Puccini’s La fanciulla del West, the 1954 Florence…
The decentralization of the music business is progressing so quickly La Cieca can hardly keep up. (Though it’s not like she’s completely in the loop; as you know, she only recently found out that Giulio Ricordi had died!) The very latest (as of this morning) is that Apple has launched a new build of iTunes…
The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, is using “sexual confusion” to prevent wear and tear on their costume collection: “The traps installed for the Royal Opera House make male clothes moths appear to other males as females, by sticking female pheromones to their bodies. “In a plot that could have come from an opera, males attempt…
All right, boys, get your bold-faced fonts out. It seems that at Oprah Winfrey‘s “Legends Ball,” none other than Leontyne Price asked specially to meet fellow guest/legend Mariah Carey. La Carey (who admits that at first she thought the diva mistook her for someone else) reports that Lee chatted with her about her music and…
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