“One of the things I’m gradually learning as I’m coming up my the 20th anniversary of writing about opera for publication is that you have to be wary about making Pronouncements.”
As with all good myths, certainly all the myths at the heart of Wagner’s operas, the juggling of symbols and archetypes and themes in Parsifal opens the piece to a great variety of interpretations.
Like the hero of Parsifal, who finds the Holy Grail after a lifetime of frustrated wandering, the Met’s audience was finally rewarded for its patience.
The new Boris Godunov from the Bayerische Staatsoper (directed by Calixto Bieito and conducted by Kent Nagano) looks absolutely remarkable.
No, not a Regie quiz—though that feature will return soon enough now that the season is up and running—but rather an image from the new Dmitri Tcherniakov production of Jenufa for the Opernhaus Zürich.
La Cieca has always, against all odds, maintained that if there is one expression that best describes the mind of the average member of the cher public, that would be “plus vive que l’oiseau, plus prompte que l’éclair.”
Zachary Woolfe (not pictured) makes his way to Bayreuth to try to unravel the Evgeny Nikitin mystery.
This Hans Neuenfels staging for the Bayreuth Festival caused quite a stir at its 2010 premiere, but now, with time and distance, how radical is the production?
Venerable Opera magazine had better watch its ass, since the publication’s “We Hear That” column will probably be getting a “visit” from the Met’s thugs goons legal counsel any minute now.
“Yet the evening’s first words, heard in the set-piece Ombra ma fui—like all of Xerxes’ arias sung with monarchic sprezzatura and amoral relish by Stella Doufexis…”
Coming up over the next two weekends: a pair of streamed video performances sure to provide plenty of chat fodder.
That most operatic of all operas, Il trovatore, has been done many ways, but here’s a first: the warhorse as bottle episode.
Richard Strauss’s “last romantic opera,” as he called Die Frau Ohne Schatten, is and has always been a problem child.
You can call Robert Lepage many things (and the critics have!), but one thing you cannot call him is “inflexible.”
Daniel Barenboim does not want to conduct Berg’s Lulu. Or so it seems.
Rusalka, in the marvelous production by Stefan Herheim, is now streaming live from La Monnaie.
In breaking news today, Margaret Thatcher announces her resignation as British Prime Minister…
The remarkable new/old production of La bohème from Norwegian Opera, directed by Stefan Herheim…
“Though Mr. Herheim’s work is rigorous, it is also fun, and this Rusalka is serious but the opposite of dour.”
It was indeed a curious sensation making a late morning trek to East 59th Street, a block devoted to showro0ms for bizarre upscale furniture and lighting fixtures, and then to enter a boutique cinema specializing in Hindi films (the big coming attraction right now is Desi Boyz) — and all this before sitting down in…
La Cieca is just back from the HD of Don Giovanni from La Scala: excellent singing through the whole cast, strong conducting (if tending to the slow side) by Daniel Barenboim, and a smart, chic production from Robert Carsen that frankly makes Michael Grandage look like an utter bumpkin. The presentation will repeat here in…
Is Peter Gelb wearing too many hats? Anthony Tommasini seems to think so, adding that one of those headpieces in particular is ill-fitting and might perhaps more flatteringly perch upon some other head. Call La Cieca suspicious, but she thinks the timing of this piece is hardly an accident.
More innovative casting from amazon.com.
“Pathos and the high tone is not his thing,” helpfully explains Google Translate in reference to “Provokateur” Frank Castorf, who has been selected to direct the Ring at Bayreuth in 2013, celebrating the 200th anniversary of Richard Wagner’s birth. [Berliner Morgenpost]
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.
