Best laid chats
Reflecting my new mantra — “and would have gone on longer, had he not died” – here is The Curate’s Egg edition of the Saturday breakdown.
Tosca
261 pieces since 2005 — at 10 companies, most often at Metropolitan Opera.
261
pieces
10
companies
22
years
Company Canadian Opera Company
Company L.A. Opera
Crate expectations
Not a few eyebrows arched on social media when L.A. Opera appropriated the hashtag “Fight like a girl” on street level poster adverts all over town for the revival of their 2013 production of Giacomo Puccini’s Tosca.
Company LoftOpera
Bushwick leagues
LoftOpera is just one, though perhaps the liveliest, of many homegrown opera troupes in Brooklyn.
Company Metropolitan Opera
Dimitri Mitropoulos was a great opera conductor
Whether an opera by Puccini, Verdi, Wagner, Strauss, or Berg, Dimitri Mitropoulos brought to the podium a total understanding and love for each score he touched.
By Moe Rear
56 comments
A certain theatrical precision
Sondra Radvanovsky was a force of nature as Tosca on Thursday night at the Met.
Imperious splendor
On this day in 1958 the Metropolitan Opera opened its season with Tosca, featuring Renata Tebaldi, Mario del Monaco and George London.
I lived, if you can call it living, for art
Since no doubt the New York contingent of the cher public are already shuddering in anticipation of a Kristine Opolais Tosca as a “gala” New Year’s Eve treat, La Cieca thought you might enjoy—again, surely too strong a word—a preview of sorts.
Lounge act
After nearly three years and over 20 performances Michael Mayer’s “Las Vegas” production of Rigoletto at the Metropolitan Opera still outrages many.
What not to wear
The Met’s premiere production of Verdi’s Attila is terrible. Are you surprised? Attila is like a self-conscious stroll down Rodeo Drive – or even worse, to the Mall of America – reducing an opera about ruthless tyranny brought down by ruthless vengeance to a quaint and insipid fashion show.
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 […]
Yes, it is good to be back
You could say last night at the Met was a typical Aprile Millo performance, if that expression were not essentially an oxymoron. “Typical” and “Millo” really don’t intersect in this dimension (maybe somewhere on a spiritual plane? But I digress.) Let’s just say that, what happens at a Millo night, happened last night, which is […]
Company New Orleans Opera
Remembering Shirley Verrett
When handing out the goodies, the gods weren’t stingy with Shirley Verrett. Few opera singers were as prodigiously gifted as Verrett: the perfect amalgam of Kunst and Stimm housed in a frame of voluptuous allure. In addition to an instrument of stunning natural beauty and easy range, Verrett displayed superior musicianship, dramatic intelligence and searing […]
Company Opera Philadelphia
Ghena Meirson 1957-2021
April is the cruelest month, the song tells us—but this year, it was a week later. Ghenady Meirson, Philadelphia’s master of Russian Opera and coach extraordinaire, died on May 8.
Company Royal Opera House
The woman in white
This new DVD
release from EMI of the Royal Opera’s latest production of Puccini’s Tosca will no doubt be snatched up by hordes of grateful fans around the globe.
Giudici, ad Angela!
La Cieca has found a few fragments from last night’s performance of Tosca at the ROH — only about 15 minutes of music, but enough, perhaps, to give a hint of the suitability of Angela Gheorghiu for the title role. La Cieca’s take (based on an in-house mike, remember!) is that the Roman diva is […]
Company San Francisco Opera
Vissi d’artist
The San Francisco Opera is batting a thousand where young singers are concerned this season.
Company Wiener Staatsoper
She never sings anything twice
Can it all be true? She did what? He said what?
Company Wolf Trap Opera
Lead balloon
At Wolf Trap Opera, a season-closing Tosca is weighed down by an incoherent setting during Italy’s Anni di piombo.
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).
