A member of the cher public who attended last night’s premiere of Verdi’s Macbeth at the Opéra national de Paris filed this report: It was Paris Opera GM Gerard Mortier‘s penultimate opportunity – his term ends in July –  to moon opening night Parisian audiences and he did just that. He flew in bad-boy director…
A Baroque Valentine’s with Opera Lafayette | Feb | DC & NYC
Celebrate love in all its guises with tender ballads, amorous duets, cheeky verses, and bawdy drinking songs plus food, cocktails and wine.
Mrs. John Claggart saw through the balloonery of our most recent Regie quiz, correctly identifying not only the opera Werther but each scene depicted. So, cher public, let’s see how you do with this week’s conundrum.
Last week’s Regie quiz could have depicted any number of operas, and La Cieca doubts there’s any opera title that wasn’t guessed. But the answer was La Vida Breve as presented by Oper Frankfurt, David Hermann (director). And now another opera done the Regie way.
The staging you may like or not like (and La Cieca is sure you will not be shy about expressing your opinion), but, my goodness, what gorgeous singing from Tatiana Monogarova and Mariusz Kwiecien! [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/kC6cuSQuyd0″ width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
Quite a few of you, led by Chris, guessed correctly that last week’s Regie puzzler was La bohème. So La Cieca will ratchet up the challenge a bit this week with a less familiar opera.Â
Two weeks later, and the drollery just keeps a-drippin’ in the competition to provide some explanation for a rather curious opera scene depicting a lady apparently trying to drown a chambermaid in a hotel bathtub. The snappiest comeback, in La Cieca’s opinion, issued from wotan_in_inman, “We’ll disguise ourselves to fool both the Count and Figaro.…
Congratulations to, well, several of you who recognized that in the previous quiz, the peeling paint on the walls was caused, as so often it is, by the singing of Abigaille in Nabucco. Only one photo this week, but La Cieca offers an amazon.com gift certificate for the wittiest explanation of what the hell is…
Props to Sir Morosus who unerringly detected Die Ägyptische Helena in last week’s post-modern imagery. Moving on from post-modern to post-apocalyptic (is such a move can be considered progress), let’s hear some guesses what this opera might be.Â
This looks like fun.
Far too easy, or at least far too straightforward, was last week’s Regie quiz. From the very beginning Lindoro and many others recognized Pfitzner’s Palestrina. The very handsome production was seen recently at the Bavarian State Opera. Christian Stückl was the director and Stefan Hageneier the designer. Is this week’s quiz a trifle more challenging?…
But you might call it deconstruction avant la lettre. [kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.youtube.com/v/rarkvZ4Cc0A” width=”425″ height=”350″ wmode=”transparent” /]
Well played, Tannengrin: your guess of Lucia di Lammermoor for our most recent Regie quiz was right on the mark. Hunkentenor fanciers among you will be interested to hear that the shirtless stripling in the third photo is Edgardo, in the person of Vittorio Grigolo. La Cieca cannot offer even seminudity in this week’s quiz,…
All hail justanothertenor, who correctly identified La forza del destino as our previous regie puzzler. Now, who cares to try his or her skill at on following mise en scene?Â
For Cassandra and others of the cher public who seem to be interested in the topic: here’s some operatic stage direction that’s a little more advanced than we tend to get here in New York. Discuss.
Oh, La Cieca just can’t put anything over on a smartyboots like our own Hans Lick, who guessed within seconds that last week’s Regie quiz was in fact Benvenuto Cellini. Let us hope that even Ironic Hans will be puzzled by this week’s mystery production, after the jump.Â
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In our previous Regie quiz, the eponymous character who managed to avoid being photographed (and, thus the title of the opera) was “La Calisto” by dear old Francesco Cavalli. The production was from the Landestheater Linz, directed by Matthias Davids. An opera from a more recent century, after the jump.Â
La Cieca just saw what must be the Platonic ideal of a Regie Quiz photo, but since the piece is supposed to be a sendup, it’s really not eligible for competition. And yet… pugs in iguana costumes! Brilliant! If you want to know more about this work, click here.
Can it be a whole month since the Regie Quiz last graced the laptops of the cher public? Indeed it has, and perhaps now it is a bit anticlimactic to reveal that the operatic rarity depicted in that long-ago puzzler was Marco Polo. This one’s not a bread and butter work either, and La Cieca…
Not a Regie quiz, but worthy of note for the “what were they thinking” factor. Here’s a production of Otello directed by the usually visually acute Paul Curran. So why was costumer Paul Edwards allowed to get up the principal artists like they’re en route to a Cypriot fancy dress party? From left to right,…
The solution to our most recent Regie quiz? Seeing is believing! Download Yes, that’s right, the opera was again Aida! Now for this week’s Regie puzzler, which La Cieca promises is not going to be a Verdi opera set in ancient Egypt!
Most everyone caught an “Oriental” vibe from our previous Regie quiz, but only one of you guessed correctly that the opera depicted was Aida, as performed at Staatstheater Stuttgart in October 2008, directed by Karsten Wiegand. Our next little quiz is right after the jump.
La Cieca can’t put anything over on you any more, cher public. Would you believe that within half an hour after she posted the most recent Regie quiz, Baritenor correctly divined that it was a production of Wagner’s Rienzi, as staged by none other than Wagner’s great-granddaughter Katharina. Maybe this week’s quiz will be a…
It’s the Brokeback Ballet from Krzysztof Warlikowski‘s production of Yevgeny Onegin!
Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.
