La Cieca has just heard from one of her habitually infallible moles that the refitting of the Met’s stages for the Robert Lepage Ring began today.
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On the other hand, only moments ago La Cieca got a call from member of the cher public who gushed, “I just heard the greatest ‘Egli vede ch’io piango!’ ever!”
“The Met at this point is not a place where even a talented opera director can make good, strong work, let alone a place where a director inexperienced with the genre — as so many of Mr. Gelb’s favored artists are — can be guided toward an understanding of it.” Gadfly-at-large Zachary Woolfe takes “A…
La Cieca’s question here is exactly what we should be expecting Fabio Luisi to do as a “Guest” at the Met over the next few years? Will he get his own projects, or is going be end up relegated to being Jimmy’s standby (Der Levinespringer)?
Per the Met’s press office: “In this evening’s performance of Rossini’s Armida, Barry Banks will sing the role of Gernando, replacing José Manuel Zapata, who is ill. Banks will also sing the role of Carlo, which he was already scheduled to perform.”
“I agree that Gelb has had problems actually identifying what’s going to make a successful production. But I submit that the real problem is exactly the same problem the Met had under Gelb’s predecessor, Joe Volpe: not that the company engages unusual directors, but that it doesn’t let them actually do what they’re good at.…
Robert Tuggle, Director of Archives for the Metropolitan Opera, has announced a migration of the company’s supremely useful online database to a new software system. He’s looking for ideas for “new features that might improve on a system that we are already pleased with.”
As we approach the end of the first all-Peter Gelb season at the Met, there’s already a certain amount of editorial judgment on the General Manager’s “aesthetic agenda.” That’s only fair, of course: judgement is what critics do.
Luc Bondy’s Tosca returned to the Met on Wednesday night with an entirely new set of principals and conductor. The new trio of principal singers, all making local role debuts, could not redirect and redesign the production but they could allow their individual talents to outshine their surroundings.
La Cieca just heard that Angela Gheorghiu has canceled tonight’s performance of Traviata at the Met. Hei-Kyung Hong goes on.
1817 was a fertile and diverse time for 26 year old Gioachino Rossini. It opened with his last true opera buffa, La Cenerentola, continued with his most important semiseria, La gazza ladra, and ended with two operas, which, although both nominally belonging to the seria genre, could not be more different from each other.
La Cieca will not be near a keyboard (or for that matter a theoboro) this evening, but please don’t let that stop you, cher public, from chatting during the Metropolitan Opera premiere of Rossini’s Armida, starring Renée Fleming (not pictured).
Armida in just three hours, and, ironically (given the dramatic weight of this bel canto role) a certain soprano just can’t stop twittering!
Far over on the Upper West Side of Manhattan exists an amazing marvel of the cosmos… the Metropolitan Opera. It is where the opera Tosca is being “prepared” for performance only few days from now.
Getting the “screaming heads” treatment on CNBC is not good news for Peter Gelb.
Our Own Gualtier Maldè (right) escaped today’s Armida dress rehearsal at the Met with his wits intact. He reports:
See those little blue circles? Do you know what they represent? The answer is after the jump.
UPDATE: The Traviata chat is beginning in preparation for the 8:00 start time of tonight’s performance.
La Cieca has just heard that Leonard Slatkin has been removed from further performances of Traviata at the Met.
Patricia Racette will sing the title role in Puccini’s Tosca on April 14, 17, 20, and 24 matinee, replacing Karita Mattila, “who is ill” — this just in from the Met’s press office.
You know La Cieca’s two favorite things in the world are French grand opera and ham, so how could she miss the chance to host a chat on so rare an occasion as today’s Met broadcast of Hamlet? The chat begins at 1:00 pm, and the details are after the jump.
La Cieca (not pictured) invites you, her group mind, to help her sort out the following conundrum.
“After all that, it would be gratifying to declare Petersen’s debut a ‘star is born’ moment. But… she was pretty much a nonstarter, her Ophélie hovering on the cusp of inaudibility in midrange and shrill on the highest notes.” [NYP]
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