That is what fiction means

“As beautiful as her singing was, [Renata Scotto] never was much of an actress.” — Lotfi Mansouri: An Operatic Journey

Royal rascals

The Post decided to pass on a review of the Caramoor Maria di Rohan (July 24), but the presentation is definitely worth a mention and some discussion, so let’s take it to parterre.

opera queen in queen city

[La Cieca is happy to present a guest review by Our Own Lindoro Almaviva.] Cincinnati Opera makes a good case for the 4 act version of Don Carlo. I think it is a great idea that they used projected titles to give us the background of the opera (since we lose the Fontainebleau scene). This…

old school

La Cieca is thrilled to note that VAI have continued their series of releases from the NHK Lirica Italiana telecasts of the 1960s and 1970s. These DVDs, remastered from original broadcasts on Japanese television, preserve performances by some of the greatest Italian artists of the mid-20th century. The most recent treasure to be unearthed is…

method in the madness?

Dear Addison DeWitt once said, “You have a point. An idiotic one, but a point.” Actually he didn’t say it to La Cieca, but that’s neither here nor there. Since your doyenne is what you might call pathologically determined to see both sides of every questions, she’s going to reopen the can of worms here…

Voce di donna

On a new episode of Unnatural Acts of Opera that can only be called fabulous, we hear the first act of Un ballo in maschera as it was performed at La Scala in April of 1956. Gianandrea Gavazzeni is the conductor, and even by the lofty standards of Unnatural Acts of Opera the cast is…