Our left coast correspondent Baritenor reports: I would not call Grendel an opera for the faint-hearted. The libretto is well-written, but the score jumps to both ends of the operatic spectrum, going from lyrical to modernistic to lyrical again in the blink of an eye. Think Benjamin Britten on crack, if you will, only with…
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La Cieca is singing the praises of her namesake la la, a website that coordinates the trading of previously owned CDs. This is how it works: you list your unwanted CDs on the site, then you select from the 1.8 million titles other members are willing to trade. Every time you choose a disc to…
UPDATE: the podcast of Das Rheingold is now online! La Cieca is delighted and not a little bit frightened to announce that Unnatural Acts of Opera will present the first-ever podcast of Wagner’s tetraology Der Ring des Nibelungen beginning Friday, June 2 and continuing through the last weekend of the month. The series will consist…
“Not since Delia Rigal,” comments one of La Cieca’s regular correspondents, referring to the ongoing (not to mention inscrutable) publicity juggernaut for soprano Erika SunnegÃ¥rdh. Now she’s headlining a revised concert program for the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on May 14. According to an “URGENT” press release sent out yesterday, La SunnegÃ¥rdh will be…
Devotees of Wagner’s Ring and the Fritz Lang Siegfried silent film (not to mention all those Lord of the Rings fanboys) will find at least something to enjoy in the miniseries The Dark Kingdom, beginning tonight on The SciFi Network. Now, La Cieca admits that the bio for the guy who plays Siegfried begins less…
First word on Francesca Zambello‘s “American iconography” production of Der Ring des Nibelungen sounds moderately dire. Our top secret mole The Concerned Wagnerian reports from somewhere in the vicinity of the Washington National Opera: “Alberich is panning for gold in a western getup. The Rhinemaidens reveal their gold as a large quilt. Yes, a quilt.…
All right, class. Take a careful look at the costume sketch below. It’s for a major character in a standard repertory opera. (In other words, nobody is doing Natoma.) Look carefully at the sketch, and when you think you know who the character is, scroll down to find out the answer. Think you know who…
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…
Long before Matthias Goerne got all girly on us, popera megastar Andrea Bocelli (remember him?) dipped his wick into Wagner chick-lit. This is according to our colleague Nick Scholl at trrill.com, who goes on to snark re crossover and trannies. A link to Kirsten Flagstad showing us How It Should Be Done ensues.
That classic Mozart/da Ponte warning against the dangers of the heterosexual lifestyle, Don Giovanni, is the basis for La Cieca’s next podcast. It’s an example of what is called “big house Mozart” — in other words, Mozart performed in a grand opera house, with full-voiced Verdian and Wagnerian singers, and in general overlaid with a…
UPDATE: Not only are Gli Alagni scheduled for Aida at La Scala in 2006 (as noted yesterday), La Cieca has just heard that Peter Gelb has promised them a new production of Carmen at the Met in 2009-10. And, yes, Gheorghiu is the Carmen, not the Micaela. This is all at least four years in…
“As I have never in life felt the real bliss of love, I must erect a monument to the most beautiful of all my dreams, in which, from beginning to end, that love shall thoroughly satiated. I have in my head ‘Tristan and Isolde,’ the simplest, but most full-blooded musical conception. With the black flag…
La Cieca has sneered quite a bit at Anthony Tommasini lately for his slipshod coverage of the Met’s archives and a really repellent obituary of Piero Cappuccilli. But it’s not like Tony is alone in his bumbling. This morning’s Newsday included a wire-service obit of legendary cabaret diseuse The Incomparable Hildegarde, who departed this world…
The decentralization of the music business is progressing so quickly La Cieca can hardly keep up. (Though it’s not like she’s completely in the loop; as you know, she only recently found out that Giulio Ricordi had died!) The very latest (as of this morning) is that Apple has launched a new build of iTunes…
Norman Lebrecht has lost his fucking mind. My second favorite in this rabid rant is how Wieland Wagner (the “competent” stage director) had the middle name “Adolf.” (Wieland was born in 1917, six years before his mother Winifred met the fellow Lebrecht insinuates was his namesake.) The number one brain-fart in the piece is Lebrecht’s…
Just imagine! The legend herself, Anja Silja taking time out of a busy rehearsal schedule (and despite her concern about the orchestra, problematic in early runthroughs)—to talk to parterre box. I confess I imagined she would be at least a little bit like her character of Emilia Marty—cynical, burned out, impatient. What a surprise, then,…
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