Spanish panic
Here’s a glimpse of the Regie route Anna Netrebko and Placido Domingo will go in November when they make their role debuts in Il trovatore at the Berlin Staatsoper.
placido domingo
Teen spirit
La Cieca thought it would be amusing to do a bit of speculation about what’s to come as we approach the middle of the decade.
Found object
Well, you can slash La Cieca’s veins, drink her blood and trample her corpse, because she did not see this one coming!
Senior moment
Being an opera lover in Los Angeles is a lot like being a Red Sox fan. As hard as they try we never make it to the World Series, let alone the playoffs.
She said, he said
So Placido Domingo was all like, “Oh, that Anne Midgette is just a mean girl and she is SO JELLUS,” and then Anne was like, “Actually, nuh-uh, maestro, I’m so not.”
The world of tomorrow
“Sony Classical is proud to announce the signing of an exclusive recording contract with Plácido Domingo. This new agreement brings the legendary singer back to the company where his unparalleled recording career started in the late 1960s. Sony Classical’s catalog boasts many of his milestone recordings, and the renewed collaboration between Mr. Domingo and the […]
A fjord in his future
La Cieca is not sure if this is a casting announcement or the result of a particularly silly round of Mad Libs: Plácido Domingo will add yet another notch to his repertoire, the title role of Der Fliegende Holländer, in a production at the Arena di Verona in the summer of 2013, with Daniel Barenboim […]
Give until it hurts
Sadly reduced to penury by music fans illegally downloading his music, the once-mighty Placido Domingo has resorted to whoring himself out to a recording industry organization whose noble purpose is to assure that sleazy A&R people continue to afford top-quality cocaine and hookers hard-working artists will receive just compensation for their work. Well, the legendary […]
Our weapons are useless
“With a career spanning half a century, Placido Domingo continues to be firmly against leaving the stage, where presently he is triumphing in his role as Oreste in the production of Iphigenie en Tauride that is being performed at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.” [Fox News]
Altar ego
“At a time of life when most opera singers can barely remember their glory days, 70-year-old Placido Domingo is still giving performances singers half his age could be proud of.” Our Own JJ‘s latest review is a love letter to the Met’s revival of Iphigénie en Tauride. [New York Post]
Cross purposes
It was while attending a performance of Fédora in Naples in 1885 that eighteen year-old Umberto Giordano fell in love with Sardou’s then immensely popular play; the protagonist was none other than Sarah Bernhardt, the creator of the title role. He immediately asked the French dramatist to sell him the rights, a request Sardou did […]
She aches just like a woman, but she breaks just like a little girl
“’Voice’ is a feminine noun is Spanish, and therefore, must be treated with love and attention, like a woman. This is where the secret lies.” [PanArmenian.net]
Iphigénie en arrière-fond
“This company premiere features an outstanding cast led by soprano Patricia Racette, ‘the consummate singing actress’ (Chicago Tribune).” [Washington National Opera]
Voilà donc la terrible idée!
La Cieca hears that Placido (“Simon Boccanegra is the only baritone role I’m interested in singing”) Domingo is going to expand his repertoire yet again, to Athanaël in Thaïs, sometime in 2012. The role after that, La Cieca hears, will be eponymous, but as of now the title is known to only a few chosen […]
Domingo ankles DC
Placido Domingo will not renew his Washington National Opera contract when it expires in June 2011. Anne Midgette has the story! [Washington Post]
“Style, not sincerity, is the vital thing”
Now, don’t you go thinking that Peter Gelb doesn’t listen to his public, which intersects quite steeply, of course, with the cher public. For instance, just the other day La Cieca and a couple of others were lamenting that opera has lost some of it mad silly gay folie lately. Lo and behold, today it […]
E pluribus unum
It looks like the Washington National Opera is going to be absorbed by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. [Wall Street Journal]
Hunch confirmed
“Internationally acclaimed opera singer and arts administrator Plácido Domingo, General Director of Washington National Opera (WNO), will lead a group of his protégés in a concert performance of Verdi’s Rigoletto on August 2, 2010, at Beijing’s Reignwood Theater…. The concert performance marks the first time that Domingo, a legendary tenor who has recently made highly […]
Three score and ten?
“I’ve been moving on stage all my life and I can still manage long rehearsal periods, so I feel fine in the right repertoire…. I just don’t want to go further than I should. I suppose there’s a certain limit: I don’t want to be 70 and still singing opera. I don’t think I will […]
LA “Ring” death toll climbs to zero
No one, not even the company’s near-septuagenarian General Director/Wälsung, has stumbled thus far in the West Coast cycle of Wagner’s tetralogy; in fact, the only ones complaining are the handful of LaRouche protesters outside the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. Of course, things are bound to heat up when mouthy heldentenor John Treleaven makes his first official […]
Fasten your seat belts
“I would only ask if there is any director who stays every day in the place he works,” Mr. Domingo said, his voice rising. [Wall Street Journal]
Qatar and the fiddle
“Maestro Placido Domingo took to the stage in Qatar for the second time on Thursday night, when he was joined by the ‘Antologia de la Zarzuela’, with whom he gave an amazing performance of traditional Spanish music at the Pearl-Qatar.” [Gulf Times]
Nur wer Douche das Freyer spricht
Before the Los Angeles Ring cycle has even begun, two of the leading singers have thrown director Achim Freyer under the bus. Particular non-collegial is leather-larynxed heldentenor John Treleaven, who blames his crappy singing on the production, but the mot du jour is: “Domingo was out of town and unavailable to answer questions.” [Los Angeles […]
Diversifying
“In two Verdi operas per formed less than a week apart, legendary tenor Plácido Domingo revealed that, as a conductor, he makes an OK baritone.” Our Own JJ reviews Simon Boccanegra and Stiffelio at the Met. [NYP]
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
I’ll take the fall
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).
