Questo E Quello Videos

From deep in the parterre cellar, a glimpse of a long ago Met Hoffmann. Vina Bovy as Antonia Elle a fui, la tourterelle NEW! René Maison as Hoffmann Metropolitan Opera House January 14, 1937 Matinee LES CONTES D HOFFMANN Offenbach-Barbier/Carré Hoffmann .Sydney Rayner Olympia ..Stella Andreva [Debut] Giulietta Margaret Halstead Antonia ..Hilda Burke Stella Frances Walsingham [Debut] Lindorf ..Lawrence Tibbett Coppélius Lawrence Tibbett Dappertutto .Lawrence Tibbett Dr. Miracle .Lawrence Tibbett Nicklausse ..Irra Petina Andrès Angelo Badà Cochenille ..Angelo Badà Pitichinaccio ..Angelo Badà Frantz Angelo Badà Luther Arnold Gabor Nathanael George Rasely Hermann ..Wilfred Engelman Spalanzani ..Louis D Angelo Schlemil .Norman Cordon Crespel ..Louis D Angelo Mother s Voice . mammissima La Cieca Conductor Maurice Abravanel

Here s the place for all your chatting needs, cher public, during tonight s broadcast of Les Contes d Hoffmann from the Met. The official chat begins at 7:45 pm for an 8:00 curtain, and La Cieca invites Twitters and whatever other technological frontrunners to contribute their opinions and dish. Sirius/XM RealNetworks from metopera.org Following this performance with a score is going to be difficult, as the Met uses a mix-and-match edition, but if you re interested, bad old Choudens can be found here.

After seeing a video excerpt from the Met’s Patrice Chéreau production of From the House of the Dead, I was struck by the cleanness of it all, the sets, the costumes, the tastefully muted colors, and the direction. No doubt it is moving, in its way, but is it relevant? It looks like generic suffering in a nameless prison far, far away — in time, especially. In contrast, Calixto Bieito’s production of this opera at Oper Basel is more Gitmo than Gulag, more Sing Sing than Solovki, more Riker’s Island than Russian camp.  Over the opening bars, a prison soccer game is in progress. The prisoners are dirty, but each has his own sense of fashion individuality — the necessary antidote to a collective destiny. The eagle is an airplane, a real one, which slowly descends into the prison yard, making an emergency landing.  It is the symbol of escape and yet it doesn’t function. As metaphor it will haunt and taunt the prisoners for the rest of their days. Where Cheréau’s version is bleakly austere, Bieito’s is bleakly rich at all times, and sometimes even bleakly funny, as it is when the prisoner’s perform for each other wearing cardboard boxes or homemade scrap metal dildos; or bleakly poetic, such as the biplane as a magnificent dodo bird going nowhere. Download There are no women in this production. One senses that this group of men, broken people surrounded by broken things, is an explosive mix, their dreams and memories the Semtex waiting to go off. Bieito’s prisoners live in a limited anarchy:  they are free to dream and remember, to perform and applaud, to fight and to lose, but no more. Bieito knows how to move his cast to the music, and move his audience at the same time. There are terrifying moments:  when a group of men is rounded up and shot against the back wall of the prison yard, the other prisoners simply ignore the event.  It was to be expected. This time, it wasn’t them.

Colombetta, Colombetta, Apri l uscio, non farmi penar Del balcon solleva il velo Apri amor se no qui gelo Colombetta, Colombetta, Arlecchino gelando si sta. Colombetta

An old clip, from 2005 in fact, but oddly prescient, perhaps. Who knew that Les vêpres siciliennes could sound so much like Verismo? Not the Greatest of E s (Don t thank La Cieca; this stunner was sent in by Our Own Kernita Makilla.)

Of course, there were also setbacks along the road to success. During a performance of La Traviata in Genoa conducted by Bonynge, the audience roundly booed tenor Lamberto Furlan to the point that the conductor and his wife, who had personally picked Furlan for the role, left the stage and refused to complete the performance. Hear [...]

A preview of sorts of next season s Met production of Armida. This is Herself, as heard  last week in Prague. D amor al dolce impero

La forza del destino from the New Orleans Opera (1953) continues on Unnatural Acts of Opera. Meanwhile, La Cieca comments about all that publicity JJ has been receiving lately.La forza del destino (Verdi) Part 2 Leonora: Zinka Milanov; Don Alvaro: Mario del Monaco; Don Carlo: Leonard Warren; Padre Guardiano: William Wilderman; Preziosilla: Claramae Turner; Marquis of Calatrava: Norman Treigle; Fra Melitone: Gerhard Pechner; Curra: Rosemary Rotolo; Surgeon: Donald Bernard; Beggar Woman: Lydia Neuman. Orchestra and Chorus of the New Orleans Opera; Walter Herbert, conductor. March 1953. This podcast is based on VAI AUDIO CD 1252-3, which is available from amazon.com .

La Cieca is simply beside herself to announce what she is confident will be both the biggest and most exciting parterre box competition of all time. This competition is called Reading the Letter, and it will test that most basic of opera queen skills, i.e., pretending to be a soprano. After the jump, La Cieca will explain how it works:  1. At the end of this posting you will find links to download an mp3 and a pdf file, consisting respectively of the background track and the score of the Teneste la promessa scene from La traviata. 2. Using these materials, you are to create a performance of these famous lines: «Teneste la promessa la disfida ebbe luogo! il Barone fu ferito, però migliora Alfredo è in stranio suolo; il vostro sacrifizio io stesso gli ho svelato. Egli a voi tornerà pe l suo perdono; io pur verrò Curatevi mertate un avvenir migliore; Giorgio Germont.» È tardi! The scene may be done as a video or as audio-only according to your talent and desire for anonymity, if any. 3.  Save your performance (whether video or audio-only) as a video file suitable for YouTube.  (All computers should have some type of video editing program available. If you need assistance, leave a comment below and some of the cher public will surely pitch in with advice.) Upload the resulting video to YouTube. 4.  Send La Cieca an email with a link to the YouTube video. 5.  As the competition progresses, La Cieca will post some of the more interesting entries here at parterre.com. 6.  The deadline for La Cieca s receiving an email informing her of your entry is midnight, Sunday July 26. 7.  When all entries have been received, they will be reviewed by La Cieca s blue-ribbon panel of experts. The panel will select four winning selections, each of which will be awarded a prize. One winner will be chosen in each of the following categories: Most Authentic Video Most Audacious Video Most Authentic Audio-only Most Audacious Audio-only (For the purposes of this competition, Authentic means doing the scene straight and serious; whereas Audacious means going for the laugh.  In either case, cleverness and creativity are encouraged!) 8.  From these four winners, you, the cher public, will select a Best In Show who will receive a fabulous grand prize. So, warm up those pipes, cher public, and may the best Violetta win! The downloads (right-click on the link, or save as to download): Teneste la promessa backing track* Teneste la promessa score * La Cieca wishes to express her gratitude to Our Own Sanford for preparing this accompaniment track. Sanford is, in fact, starting an online service creating these tracks for singers and instrumentalists: if you re interested in sampling his wares or commissioning your own rehearsal track, you can contact him via email.

In honor of our current series of Unnatural Acts of Opera featuring La forza del destino, La Cieca presents yet another vocal identification quiz. The aria is Son giunta Madre, pietosa Vergine and your task is to identify the baker s dozen of divas singing it. Just to shake things up, La Cieca has decided we should have the competition in the comments section. If you think you know the identities of our 13 Leonoras, list them in the correct order in a comment below. The first commenter to identify all 13 correctly wins a coveted Amazon.com Gift Card. (La Cieca s decision in the case of a tie will be arbitrary and final, not unlike the fate of everyone in La forza del destino, come to think of it.) So La Cieca may contact the winner, please be sure you have a correct and current email address in your profile. And now, for your discerning ears, after the jump, the quiz.  The Convent Quiz

La Cieca is delighted to present, by special arrangement with VAI, the legendary New Orleans Forza as the latest installment of Unnatural Acts of Opera.  This live performance was recorded in March of 1953 and stars Zinka Milanov, Mario del Monaco and Leonard Warren.  You can hear the first act after the jump.  La forza [...]

What a gorgeous performance of Vissi d arte!   And was La Cieca surprised when she learned the name of the artist! Floria?

Is it for the sake of gay pride in San Francisco, or it is the relief of getting that massive whonking tiara off her pretty noggin? Either way, Anna Netrebko is singing Traviata better now than she was in April. (Sound clip after the jump.) È strano!

You will forgive me my poor dramatic skills. I have only been performing the role of Violetta for six years!   E tardi!

Antonina (Leyla Gencer) regrets the error of her ways in the third act of Donizetti s Belisario, the latest episode of Unnatural Acts of Opera.  Belisario, Act 3