According to an article in the New York Times, James Levine will cancel all his remaining Met performances this season, including a tour to Japan. He is scheduled to have surgery to repair and injured rotator cuff on March 20. House management is currently scrambling to find replacements for Levine’s characteristically heavy workload: preparation of…
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Tenor troubles continue: Neil Shicoff is out of the Monday prima of the Met’s Luisa Miller. As at the dress rehearsal, Eduardo Villa will jump in. Veronica Villaroel has of course replaced Barbara Frittoli for most of the run; however, the final two performances still list the ubiquitous TBA in the role of Luisa. La…
La Cieca has just heard that Neil Shicoff has canceled the dress rehearsal of Luisa Miller at the Met; Eduardo Villa (cover for the run) will do it. And La Cieca has heard further that Sergio Blazquez, scheduled to make his NYCO debut in La boheme in April, is having visa problems, so Gerard Powers…
A rather startling followup headline in the New York Times today: And is La Cieca the only one who was puzzled by the blurb for Luisa Miller in the Met’s Sunday Times ad? The cast for opening night is listed as Barbara Frittoli, Irina Mishura, Neil Shicoff, Carlos Alvarez, James Morris and Phillip Ens. But…
La Cieca hears that Audra McDonald will sing the role of Kitty Oppenheimer when the Met presents John Adams‘ Dr. Atomic in the 2008-2009 season. La McDonald, it will be remembered, premiered Kitty’s aria “Easter Eve, 1945” in May 2004 with the New York Philharmonic under Adams’ baton. The versatile songstress is currently in Houston…
Broadway diva Kristin Chenoweth sang for the Met Thursday in a “closed” audition. Does that mean she was behind a screen like the NY Phil does it? Rumor has it La Cheno is up for Samira (the Marilyn Horne role) the revival of Ghosts of Versailles in 2245 or whenever it is. La Cieca thinks,…
In an article in the LA Times focused mainly on Placido Domingo‘s renewal of his contract as general director of Los Angeles Opera, the tenor blames his current bout of tracheitis on his participation in Robert Wilson‘s production of Parsifal last fall. Domingo has already nixed his participation in a Wilson Walkuere skedded for Paris…
La Cieca’s faithful spy L’incredibile reports from the Met’s Samson prova that Clifton Forbis is “the most committed artist in this role since Jon Vickers,” up to and including singing the Act 1 B-flat full out over the chorus. (“Quite a contrast to Jose Cura‘s attitude.”) It doesn’t hurt, L’inc adds, that Forbis boasts “Popeye…
La Cieca is just so excited about the new youtube capability that she wants you, cher public, to get in on the act. Do you have a favorite operatic video clip you would like to share with the world (well, with the readers of parterre.com, which amounts to everyone in the world that matters)? Just…
La Cieca can’t, at this stage, direct her questions to the source of this item, but at least one Met insider at the Met is whispering that Placido Domingo will cancel some (if not all) of his performances in Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac beginning Thursday. UPDATE: The cover (who sang the closed dress rehearsal on…
La Cieca is both delighted and heartbroken to announce that, on the occasion of Madame Vera Galupe-Borszkh‘s twentieth Annual Farewell Recital, the celebrated “Traumatic Soprano” will, at long last, take the “F” word literally. Madame Vera will say “addio senza rancor” to New York once and for all when she returns to the Thalia Theatre…
So, this is what La Cieca read on the website of the Italian newspaper Il Mattino: Roberto Alagna . . . sta male a causa di crisi ipoglicemiche e non potrà cantare per almeno tre mesi . . . . A dare la notizia lo stesso cantante accompagnato dalla moglie, il soprano Angela Gheorghiu, che…
Join La Cieca in a special edition of “Unnatural Acts of Opera,” recalling some great moments from magnificent Birgit Nilsson. Part 1 includes selections from Die Walkuere, Lohengrin (with Astrid Varnay), Siegfried (with Hans Hopf), Goetterdaemmerung and Parsifal (with Helge Brilioth), plus “I Could Have Danced All Night.” In Part 2, Nilsson is heard in…
UPDATED January 12: The legendary Swedish soprano Birgit Nilsson died on December 25, it was announced yesterday. She was 87. La Cieca will present a special episode of “Unnatural Acts of Opera” tonight in salute to Mme. Nilsson. Birgit Nilsson as Isolde, Metropolitan Opera, 1971 Once Birgit Nilsson was negotiating a contract with Herbert von…
UPDATE: Not surprisingly, the “Dirty Colin” site was taken down almost immediately. So, until the coveted tape emerges, here’s a little something to help you keep the thought: Colin Farrell on Bruce Willis. Here’s news that should delight all you Nathan Gunn fans. The long-awaited Colin Farrell sex video has finally been released, or (La…
La Cieca hears that the Met has promised Renee Fleming a production of Rossini’s Armida in 2010-2011. The five years advance notice should allow plenty of time to complete all the necessary tranpositions to the score, and no doubt the ultra-busy diva is already figuring out how she will balance rehearsals against quality time with…
Congratulations to the Met’s Joe Volpe, who has successfully postponed lame duck status by wangling $25 million — real money, not pledges, and relatively few strings attached — from socialite Mercedes Bass and her husband Sid R. Bass. Mrs. Bass, who looks simply smashing in the photo accompanying the New York Times piece, made tactful…
Scuttlebutt from the Met says that Angela Gheorghiu hankers to sing Strauss’s Salome — though presumably she would workshop the role in a more friendly venue first. In other whisperings, La Cieca has heard that Peter Gelb is currently ensconced in the office once occupied by Beverly Sills. Apparently he’s to remain there until the…
Peter Gelb‘s new broom continues to sweep at the Met. Perhaps to make room for the Gheorghiu/Netrebko/Damrau generation, the incoming General Manager is buying out contracts. Two Met artists in particular are targeted, and, oddly enough, these two ladies have quite a bit in common. Both are 40-something light lyric sopranos, and they have three…
Too late, I’m afraid, for a holiday gift, but what looks to be the must-have CD of the season has just become available. It’s a “new” Elektra, — actually a release of a live 1990 performance with the Valhalla-level pairing of Dame Gwyneth Jones and Leonie Rysanek as daughter and mother. (This is of course…
“It’s not like there’s anyone who wants new operas to fail. In fact, audiences, critics, and opera companies alike have huge stakes in seeing new works succeed. And goodness knows the Metropolitan Opera, like any reputable opera company, has a responsibility to present recent compositions. However, reviews are not for good intentions; I have to…
Sometimes La Cieca can just lie back and let Tony and the Times do all the work.
The upscale art book for opera lovers this holiday season is George Tsypin Opera Factory: Building in the Black Void (Princeton University Press). Tsypin is designer of choice to directors Julie Taymor, Peter Sellars and Francesca Zambello; his most familiar work to New Yorkers is perhaps his Met Zauberfloete in collaboration with Ms. Taymor. The…
Rolando Villazon not apparently in his very best form but La Cieca is very impressed with a) his willingness to sing out and take chances even when he is less than 100% and b) his well-supported legato that is the basis of even his most vehement singing. Anna Netrebko found a way to interpret Gilda…
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