The mothership and mecca of opera in America—and home base for Parterre Box.
Those muckraking scamps over at Opera News are at it again, quoting a in their June issue a particularly inflammatory passage from the mad gay diaries of mad gay Cecil Beaton. Dear Cecil, you will recall, designed the Met’s celebrated 1961 production of Turandot that starred Birgit Nilsson. It seems that mere critical and popular […]
Cher public, La Cieca can hardly believe that the musical event of the season has slipped her mind until just this very minute. She is talking, of course, about the concert tonight in Prospect Park by (in alphabetical order) Roberto Alagna and Angela Gheorghiu. The Thirteen/WNET website helpfully notes that “Gheorghiu and Alagna aren’t strangers […]
“Even though opera is an anachronism, a centuries-old art form replete with some of the creakiest plots imaginable, in 2008 opera – at least the Met Opera– is where the action is.” An alternative (or perhaps a response) to the Wall Street Journal‘s dire prognostications may be found in an analysis of the Met’s current financial position by […]
In general, La Cieca tries to avoid posting two YouTube videos in a row, but she’s making an exception this time around since internet it-boy Izzy Anderson has decided to tackle Mozart. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://youtube.com/v/gC5aoEhmw3Y” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /] The direction is, as always, by the Seattle Svengali, Wenarto.
La Cieca was reading a website the other day. It’s all about civilization or something, a nutty kind of a website. Do you know that the guy said that downloaded media is going to take the place of CDs and DVDs? Shoving her inner Jean Harlow back into her unconscious for a moment, La Cieca […]
… for (as the saying goes) “that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.” Well, when La Cieca reflects upon where she’s going to spend the rest of her life, the first place she turns to is Bradley Wilber‘s MetManiac. So you can imagine your doyenne’s deep relief […]
La Cieca thanks a particularly loyal member of the cher public for pointing out the most recent bit of hard-hitting arts coverage in the Wall Street Journal, as copied and pasted by that hardest of all arts hitters, Terry Teachout. La Cieca says “copied and pasted” because in this piece Teachout manages to blather on […]
New York City Opera has commissioned American composer Charles Wuorinen to write an opera based on “Brokeback Mountain,” a love story about two U.S. ranch-hands that won three Oscars when it was turned into a movie. The opera house’s spokesman Gerard Mortier said in a statement on Sunday that Wuorinen had accepted an invitation to […]
Our most recent Regie puzzler was telecast tonight, but La Cieca thinks her cher public will need no more than a sound clip and a review from the production to make the identity of the work plain: Friedrichstadtpalast meets Christopher Street Day: Alles, was hier nicht glitzert, ist nackte Haut. Otto Pichler hat supersexy Choreografien für die durchtrainierten Körper […]
New York-centric as she is, La Cieca cannot help but sulk when she hears that the Met is in line for Nicholas Hynter‘s “rather limited” staging of Don Carlo that opened last night at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.Â
In news that La Cieca is pretty sure has fallen far below Jeffrey Vanderveen‘s radar screen, a further casting rumor for next season’s Rienzi at Opera Orchestra of New York has emerged. As if Lauren Flanigan (Irene) were not superstar enough to supply name recognition for the company’s 47th production of the Wagner opus, the […]
La Cieca has to say that the funniest health code violation story she’s read in, well, days and days is the AP item entitled “NYC Health Department: Mice at Met Opera.” The hilarity begins in the very lede of the piece, which reads On-stage villains aren’t the only vermin at the Metropolitan Opera. Just as […]
“Sony Pictures studio unveiled plans Wednesday for a new digital cinema unit to bring filmed presentations of Broadway shows, rock concerts and sports events to specially equipped movie theaters nationwide.” [USA Today] “The Met’s transmissions of eight live performances to movie theaters reached 908,000 people, more than the total number who attended performances at the […]
La Cieca is thrilled to note that VAI have continued their series of releases from the NHK Lirica Italiana telecasts of the 1960s and 1970s. These DVDs, remastered from original broadcasts on Japanese television, preserve performances by some of the greatest Italian artists of the mid-20th century. The most recent treasure to be unearthed is […]
Readers of this morning’s New York Times were privileged to be present at what might be called “the birth an an idée fixe” — that is, Tony Tommasini‘s new obsession. Oddly enough, this new object of TT’s unremitting fascination isn’t something in pants, or, for that matter, something that just wriggled out of its pants. Let’s […]
La Cieca’s old, old, old friend Sanford writes:Â
Sometimes one can recognize a great artist in only one word of operatic text. This, however, is not one of those times. Context is provided after the jump.
[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, […]
“Houston Grand Opera has appointed Laura Canning to run its young-artist training program, Houston Grand Opera Studio, effective Aug. 1. She follows General Director and CEO Anthony Freud from the Welsh National Opera, where she has been artistic administrator for the last ten years.” [via musicalamerica.com]Â
I thought that it would be fun to tell you about a little concert last Sunday here in Montréal, with Renée Fleming, Diana Damrau, Joyce DiDonato and Matthew Polenzani. It was actually the first time that I have heard any of them in the flesh, so I was most curious to see if the voices […]
After Natalie Dessay‘s second act aria in La Fille du Régiment, the Metropolitan Opera audience just didn’t want to stop applauding — that’s how much fun they were having. Finally the soprano had to shush them so this new production of the Donizetti comic opera (heard April 21) could rollick to its triumphant conclusion. Our […]
La Cieca would like to remind her cher public that parterre.com stays afloat thanks to your generosity when shopping at amazon.com) and making donations through PayPal. Won’t you take a moment to click on the “donate” button so La Cieca may continue her good work? That gossip isn’t going to repeat itself!
La Cieca’s spy at least night’s performance of La Fille du Régiment assures her that, yes, indeed, Juan Diego Florèz did take a “bis” of his first act cabaletta. “Tonight the ovation was far longer and louder than before (perhaps for fear of getting short-shrift as the old folks on Saturday did), and the encore […]
. . . much to our dismay, we caught a glimpse of high-C-flaunting Juan Diego Florez coming out of the Juilliard School’s Meredith Wilson Residence Hall with fiance Julia Trappe in tow at around, oh, 1pm. That’s like 30 minutes before curtain! Little sister Counter Critic goes to the movies and gets a surprise preview. […]
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).
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