The much-anticipated Stefan Herheim production of Les Vêpres Siciliennes opened last night at the Royal Opera, and the New York Times‘ Zachary Woolfe was something less than completely bowled over.
The surprises, and puzzles, of Dmitri Tcherniakov‘s production of Don Giovanni in this DVD of a performance at the Aix-en-Provence festival begin before a note has been played or the curtain has risen.
La Cieca is happy to present the following readymade blind item.
Onegin, which opens the Met’s season on Monday, has taken an unusually precipitous tumble…
If Frank Castorf‘s work on Der Ring des Nibelungen at Bayreuth accomplishes nothing else, it should serve as a sort of loud disorganized reminder of the dangers of indulging in the intentional fallacy.
Teresa Berganza is the latest superannuated superstar to jump on the “I hate regie” bandwagon.
All right, I admit it; I finally broke down and read the program notes for the Ring in the Bayreuth program book.
Well, my dears, if you thought Frank Castorf‘s Ring or Stefan Herheim‘s Meistersinger were outré, then wait until you get a load of the radical take on Don Carlos by Peter Stein for the Salzburg Festival!
Revealed: first images of Frank Castorf‘s production of the Ring, launching Friday at Bayreuth.
We waited eagerly to hear the Munich-born Jonas Kaufmann make his role debut as Manrico at the Bavarian State Opera as well the German-Greek soprano Anja Harteros take on Leonora’s bravura difficult arias.
Soprano Elizabeth Blancke-Biggs sings the final scene from Salome in the Stefan Herheim production for Den Norske Opera.
La Cieca supposes she shouldn’t complain: the more time Lorin Maazel spends on Facebook, the less time he spends conducting Don Carlo.
As she herself points out, Zerbinetta is perhaps the first woman besides “the inimitable Heather MacDonald” to write a serious critique of Calixto Bieito‘s production of Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
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.
La Cieca doesn’t branch out into The Film very often (even though she is quite the ardent cinephile) but the recent release—or, at any rate, the reaction to the recent release—of Baz Luhrmann‘s film of The Great Gatsby served to crystallize a few ideas bubbling about in your doyenne’s brain.
In a press release, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein at Düsseldorf has announced the cancellation of its controversial new production of Tannhäuser.
La Cieca (pictured) is thrilled to announce the debut of a new online book club hosted by Norman Lebrecht of “Slipped Disc” fame.
Your Wagnerian alternatives for today’s chat in La Casa della Cieca…
Two time Oscar winner and Quentin Tarantino muse Christoph Waltz is branching out into opera direction.
La Cieca hears that the opening night of La Scala’s 2013 season will feature a new production of La traviata starring Diana Damrau and Piotr Beczala, directed by… no, not Franco Zeffirelli, but Dmitri Tcherniakov.
The gripping Calixto Bieito/Kent Nagano production of Boris Godunov from the Bayerische Staatsoper—with authoritative Alexander Tsymbalyuk in the title role…
“With one of my favorite opera productions returning to the Met tonight, I’ve been considering lately what makes Willy Decker‘s Traviata so fine, so satisfying, and so worth a return visit.” [Musical America]
The Prince of Regie, who’ll direct a new Vêpres siciliennes for the Royal Opera this fall, is 43 years old today.
So, Piotr Beczala (left) has gone and blabbed to Luister, which is some sort of Dutch glossy classical music magazine…
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.
