“If, as rumor has it, conductor Fabio Luisi is poised to succeed the ailing James Levine as music director of the Met, Saturday afternoon’s elegant performance of Ariadne auf Naxos showed he’s the right man for the job.” [New York Post]
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Now that it’s more or less official that Elina Garanca is dropping out of the Met’s production of Anna Bolena, it’s obviously up to you, the cher public, to decide who should inherit the role. In interest of gathering the broadest range of opinion on this crucial subject, a poll follows the jump.
This is the end. James Levine has just canceled all engagements between now and October, except for the two remaining peformances of Die Walküre at the Met May 9 and 14. Fabio Luisi will take over the Carnegie Hall concert with Natalie Dessay on May 16 and Levine’s duties on the Japan tour, conducting Don…
So, who had the idea first: Robert Lepage or Kenneth Branagh? (Or would it be Stan Lee and Jack Kirby?)
La Cieca’s spy reports from the Met: “A promising and delightful final dress of Ariadne yesterday.”
UPDATE: The Met’s press office states, “At the beginning of Act III (‘The Ride of the Valkyries’ scene) of last evening’s performance of Die Walküre, one of the planks that comprise the set descended to the stage floor rather than stopping opposite the stage apron. As a result, the artist singing Siegrune, mezzo-soprano Eve Gigliotti,…
“Near the end of Robert Lepage‘s production of Wagner’s Die Walküre, which opened at the Metropolitan Opera on Friday, there is a moment of arresting visual beauty. The raked stage slowly rises and, with the help of projections, turns into a looming, stark, snow-covered mountain. It’s a breathtaking transformation, one that encapsulates everything that’s wrong…
“Director Robert Lepage’s obsession with eye-popping visuals showed little concern for the work’s complex intellectual and moral dimensions.” [New York Post]
When La Cieca is asked the secret of a successful chat for the opening night of Die Walküre at the Met, her answer is “a comfortable desk chair.” And so, wishing you, the cher public, the best of luck with your Sitzfleisch, here are the details for tonight’s chat, which begins at 6:30 pm.
Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke is the frontrunner to direct the 2013 Bayreuth Ring, Handelsblatt reports. (If the name sounds familiar, it may be because Haneke was announced to direct Cosi fan tutte at NYCO during the 2012 season projected by Gerard Mortier.) Dark horses for the prestigious Green Hill gig include Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck…
It’s official: Peter Gelb says the Met is going to Japan! [Wall Street Journal]
You really didn’t think your doyenne would let a top-secret dress rehearsal at the Met slip away without getting an exclusive on-the-scene report for you, the cher public? Now, did you? Well, if you did, you’re wrong, because La Cieca’s mole (pictured) has filed the following report:
La Cieca has just learned that Bryn Terfel will sing the role of Scarpia for this evening’s performance of Tosca,replacing James Morris, who is ill and withdrew early this afternoon. Terfel, who is of course in the city rehearsing the Met’s new production of Die Walküre, was in the audience for this afternoon’s performance of Wozzeck, where…
“In an April 9 story about tenor Juan Diego Florez helping deliver his baby minutes before singing in the Metropolitan Opera production of Le Comte Ory, The Associated Press erroneously reported that the soprano starring in the broadcast was Renee Fleming. The singer was Diana Damrau. Fleming was the host.” [AP]
A faithful reader points La Cieca to a New York Times article noting that “…the triple disaster has jolted the Japanese into a new reality, sapping the materialist, feel-good spirit and replacing it with a focus on helping others and a mood of back to basics.”
“Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, about a bullied soldier’s descent into madness, is one of the grimmer operas around. Yet it was cause for jubilation Wednesday night when Met music director James Levine finally returned to the podium.” [New York Post]
A faithful spy reports from the Met: “Today’s final dress of Wozzeck went very well, to say the least…. The small ‘closed’ audience cheered at the end. Waltraud Meier turned toward the wings when it was time for the maestro to take his curtain calll, but returned to her place without him. Suddenly, there [James…
In what La Cieca chooses to regard fondly as a flashback to her gritty early days in Manhattan in the 1980s, a Met honcho has been busted on 14th Street with schnauzer in full view. [New York Post]
Given the multiple A-list events transpiring Saturday afternoon, La Cieca has come up with what she hopes is a workable solution to the over-abundance of choices.
You know, there’s the day-to-day stuff, like is Salvatore Licitra going to sing tonight. And then there’s the “coming soon” stuff, like getting the new Walküre up and running. And the “closely watched” stuff, like the Japan tour, with additional concerns outlined in today’s New York Times. And speaking of that article, there’s bullshit like…
“Take a sexy comedy, add Rossini’s scrumptious melodies, then fold in world-class singers and a Tony-winning director. Now pray it doesn’t turn out like the sodden soufflé that is the Met’s new Le Comte Ory.” Our own JJ is in a severe mood in today’s New York Post.
A source close to the Met tells La Cieca that “all the house’s union representatives” will meet with Peter Gelb today to discuss rank and file “anxieties” about exposure to radiation and other safety concerns during the company’s planned tour to Japan scheduled for June. The bulk of Met personnel are scheduled to depart on…
The Met’s general manager indulges in the sincerest form of flattery by opening today’s New York Times response to his critics with a blind item in the style of a certain low-rent gossipmonger. After you figure out the identity of the “star soprano, [who,] thinking she might have been poisoned, withdrew from the cast,” you…
“Puppets, of course, can be diverting, but they have no depth. This is fine if your audience has, as Mr. Lepage must hope, childlike emotional demands. But ultimately, for an adult, watching puppets is simply boring after a while, not because they’re not beautifully done, but because they’re not alive. After the initial burst of…
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