The most official-looking word La Cieca can find on Saturday afternoon’s Tristan HD adventure is here — and so, it seems, she was half right: Robert Dean Smith will sing the one performance, but only the one. Now, this was just an instinct before the online evidence was presented to her, but your doyenne was…
By La Cieca
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The Met’s second season of “Live in HD†continues on Saturday, March 15 at 1:30 pm/est with the new production of Britten’s Peter Grimes. Tenor Anthony Dean Griffey sings the title role, Patricia Racette is the kindhearted Ellen Orford, and Anthony Michaels-Moore is Balstrode. Donald Runnicles conducts. Intermission features include live interviews hosted by star…
By La Cieca
La Cieca has just learned more details about the Royal Opera’s Naked Executioner Guy and she’s sure that we all want to stay right on top of the story. Naked Executioner Guys’s real name is Duncan Meadows. He is a busker who, like so many in the busking biz, does the bulk of his bulking…
By La Cieca
No doubt about it, Stephanie Blythe needs to get another picture taken for the New York Times. (It was unflattering enough the first time around.) On the other hand, it’s nice to have a general manager who says things like “I worship the ground Stephanie Blythe walks on,” and (ever adept at providing a mini-scoop)…
By La Cieca
La Cieca has just learned the scheduled roster and repertoire for the Volpe Farewell Gala to be performed on Saturday, May 20 (and, if all this music stays in the show, part of May 21 as well.) Deborah Voigt will open the program with special material by Ben Moore, accompanied by Brian Zeger. The first…
By La Cieca
Scuttlebutt from the Met says that Angela Gheorghiu hankers to sing Strauss’s Salome — though presumably she would workshop the role in a more friendly venue first. In other whisperings, La Cieca has heard that Peter Gelb is currently ensconced in the office once occupied by Beverly Sills. Apparently he’s to remain there until the…
By La Cieca
Peter Gelb‘s new broom continues to sweep at the Met. Perhaps to make room for the Gheorghiu/Netrebko/Damrau generation, the incoming General Manager is buying out contracts. Two Met artists in particular are targeted, and, oddly enough, these two ladies have quite a bit in common. Both are 40-something light lyric sopranos, and they have three…
By La Cieca
La Cieca, ear to ground as always, has picked up some reliable-sounding scuttlebutt about the incoming Peter Gelb regime at the Met. The first decade will probably be known as “All Villazon All the Time” since (per our source), Rolando Villazon has inked a pledge to sing two operas a year at the Met for…
By La Cieca
UPDATE: Not only are Gli Alagni scheduled for Aida at La Scala in 2006 (as noted yesterday), La Cieca has just heard that Peter Gelb has promised them a new production of Carmen at the Met in 2009-10. And, yes, Gheorghiu is the Carmen, not the Micaela. This is all at least four years in…
By La Cieca
La Cieca hears (from very reliable sources indeed) that one of the first initiatives of the new Peter Gelb regime at the Met will be to build up Angela Gheorghiu into “house diva.” Apparently the new attitude will be “you’re going on, with or without that wig.” Another top-priority item on the Met’s agenda: a…
By La Cieca
