A cross to bear
A uniformly strong cast triumphs over a dull production of Don Carlo at the Dallas Opera.
Don Carlo
102 pieces since 2008 — at 6 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
102
pieces
6
companies
19
years
Company Dallas Opera
Company La Scala
Love of the earth
Claudio Abbado passed away on the 20th of January five years ago, just months before I began my Ph.D.
A passel of pirates
Many live treasures (and some duds) began to take up more and more space—first in my dorm room, then in my first little studio apartment thanks to a group of quite special men, none of whom I ever met face to face.
Company Metropolitan Opera
Not in Kansas anymore
Christopher Corwin speaks to rising bass-baritone Le Bu about his journey from Yancheng, China to the Met (with a stop in Wichita) and what important roles await him.
Paul Plishka 1941-2025
The American bass, a fixture of the Metropolitan Opera between 1967 and 2018, was 83.
Yannick pannick
The Metropolitan Opera chose the early August operatic doldrums in NYC to announce the renewal of Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s contract as music director through the 2029-30 season.
Rebranding the Met
A quick survey of the Met website shows wide swaths of available seats for the upcoming performances of La traviata and L’elisir d’amore. Only new works like The Hours and Fire Shut Up in My Bones have been achieving sold-out houses.
For the birds
A “lone voice in the wilderness” booed Barbara Frittoli’s calamitous Nedda.
Kokusai himitsu keisatsu
You perhaps will not be completely flabbergasted that La Cieca has a spy following the Met’s Japan tour (pictured). The reports thus far (I mean, once the ragtag band of misfits finally landed in the Land of the Rising Sun) are not particularly scandalous, but, please give our operative time!
Been there, Don that
After a rather long afternoon at the Met, a member of the cher public writes: “The Don Carlo final dress was worth catching.” Our spy has more to say after the jump.
Four saints in five acts
A quintessential theater man as well as a brilliant conductor, James Levine rightfully chose not only the five-act version of Don Carlo for this 1980 performance but begins the opera as Verdi had originally conceived it. The Woodcutters chorus and the episode in which Elisabetta gives her necklace to a destitute woman are pages essential to […]
Company San Francisco Opera
Four faints in five acts
That little place just two hours from the city is on the list of things I shall never understand, like the plot of Parsifal.
Company Teatro alla Scala
Mike Richter meets Claudio Abbado
La Cieca assumes, or at least hopes, such an encounter is currently taking place on some other plane. In slightly more mundane terms, though, Mike Richter did “meet” Claudio Abbado, though not in the context of his celebrated CD-ROM series.
Company Teatro Comunale di Modena
One of three
When I acquire DVDs of opera performances, I look for performances which truly merit a video recording; performances in which the totality of the musical and dramatic elements are worth preserving for repeated viewing.
Win a Free Ticket to Opening Night at the Met!
Quinn Kelsey and Lise Davidsen star in the Met's new Macbeth. We're giving away one ticket, so screw your courage to the sticking place and enter now!
I’ll take the fall
The days are getting shorter, but you can keep the prattle going this fall’s Talk of the Town! You will, you can, you must join in the discussion about: Great mezzo soprano performances (October),
Gained in translation (November), Teleport me back to… (December).
