If the original version of The Prom had zazz—to borrow from one of the show’s signature numbers— Ryan Murphy’s adaptation barely achieves fizz.
“We do not go to opera to see stories similar to those we would see in movies.”
Well, when the New York Times goes into a tizzy, you know times are hard, cher public, but your doyenne is ready to ride to the rescue, hakeo don’t panic.
La Cieca (pictured) notes that next year’s recipients of the F. Paul Driscoll Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence will include Joseph Calleja, Elina Garanca, Waltraud Meier, Anna Netrebko and José van Dam, which means we are now officially out of old singers.
Ever on the avant-garde, Lyric Opera of Chicago has embraced the cutting-edge technology of “phonography” as part of their effort to attract young audiences.
La Cieca (third from right) has always prided herself on offering opportunities to the young, even if they aren’t always quick to pick up on her hints, and today is no exception. Your doyenne has several unusual (one might even say offbeat) opera events on the calendar, and she’d be interested in sending novice parterre…
A young opera fan is looking for advice.
La Cieca presents an open letter from a parterre box reader.
La Cieca wants to give a quick “shout-out” (as the youngsters say, they tell me) to “critic, novelist and record-store clerk” Daniel Stephen Johnson, who on top of all that is not only one of our newest and nicest commenters, but a smart and sassy blogger in his own right. He writes somewhat in the…
The current issue of The Advocate includes an interview with adorable 27-year-old bedhead Nico Muhly about his next composition project, an opera “based on a true Internet romance/friendship between two teenage boys that ended in one of the two stabbing the other to death.” Muhly’s “teen gay Internet sex drama,” to a libretto by Craig Lucas,…
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.
