Out of the past

Since I had already gotten my Hanukah gift this year (my Nikon D3000 DSLR), I was surprised to receive a box from my sister this past week. One of the gifts inside was Les Urnes de l’Opera, a collection of arias and scenes recorded shortly after the turn of the last century and buried in…

By January 01, 2010 at 11:59 PM
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Pray for Verena’s baby

Siegfried Wagner ‘s 1903 opera Der Kobold  (The Goblin) is a fascinating yet infuriating work. It often seems as if both music and libretto were written by a committee that couldn’t come to agreement.   The plot structure careens wildly from realism to mysticism to symbolism; the music hops from style to style and influence to…

By November 12, 2009 at 3:46 PM
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Dawn of the Philistines Dawn of the Philistines

I’m not sure who I find more annoying – the partisans who vigorously defend Luc Bondy‘s production of Tosca at the Met or those who decry it.  As Bondy’s production replaces one of the Met’s signature offerings, both groups have seized on this event as a watershed event in the history of opera in America…

By October 13, 2009 at 12:34 PM
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strum und drang

Undaunted by Hurricane Hannah, La Cieca continues her presentation of Lohengrin at Unnatural Acts of Opera. Lohengrin: Jess Thomas Elsa: Claire Watson Telramund: Walter Berry Ortrud: Christa Ludwig Koenig Heinrich: Martti Talvela Heerrufer: Eberhard Waechter Vienna State Opera, Karl Boehm, 1965. Lohengrin Act 2

By September 06, 2008 at 6:16 PM
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a knight to remember

In honor of the 158th anniversary of the premiere of Lohengrin, Unnatural Acts of Opera presents a performance of the Wagnerian work from Vienna in 1965 under the baton of Dr. Karl Böhm. Lohengrin, Act 1

By August 28, 2008 at 8:07 PM
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doubleplusungood

A loyal member of the cher public noticed this howler by Need You Ask in the online NYT earlier today: Unfortunately for La Cieca (and, well, yes, for anyone else with journalistic standards — so sue me!) the Times has already managed to do one of their “Ministry of Truth” numbers on the offending paragraph…

By March 26, 2008 at 1:50 PM
17 comments
Tough guy

Joseph Volpe‘s memoir The Toughest Show on Earth (see, La Cieca can get the title right when she wants too) is a book about a working-class kid from Queens who wanted to be Rudolf Bing when he grew up. Or, rather, it’s about a stage carpenter who was bright enough and ambitious enough to do…

By May 22, 2006 at 3:10 PM
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