Master of her Domain

The film of that awful play Master Class will begin lensing next week in Detroit. Faye Dunaway directs and stars as Maria Callas. [Detroit Free Press]

UPDATE: Edited to include this much funnier photo suggesting La Dunaway has decided to play the Audra McDonald part.

Joyce DiDonato in Maria Stuarda

La DiDonato is joined here by Gabriele Fontana and Eric Cutler in this 2005 video.

Frocked up

UPDATED: Now with even more operatic tackiness!

A sampling of Diva Dress Disasters submitted by the cher public.Seen worse disasters? Email La Cieca!

Singing, actress

For those of you who were stumped by Lady Number Six, here's the mysterious dame herself, Galina Vishnevskaya, in a more accustomed version of Lady Macbeth, the 1966 film by Mikhail Shapiro of Katerina Izmailova.

The great diva returned to the screen only last year in Alexandra (directed by Alexander Sokurov), playing an elderly woman who makes the trek to Chechnya to visit her grandson, who has been stationed there as a soldier for seven years.

Ferocious!

The unusual and undreamed-of videos just keep popping up on YouTube. Here's a scene from Norma with Elinor Ross and Mario del Monaco!

No Sleep 'Til Sunnyside

Not a whole lot of news on matters operatic in the past couple of days, so La Cieca has decided a competitive quiz is in order. The clip below is the "Sleepwalking Scene" from Verdi's Macbeth divided among 14 sopranos and mezzo-sopranos. All you have to do is name the 14 singers in the correct order. (La Cieca has decided to be merciful this time and omit overly obscure singers. Each singer in this clip is or was internationally famous. However, La Cieca cautions you that not all these singers included Lady Macbeth in their onstage repertoire.)

When you believe you know all 14 voices, send your answer to lacieca@parterre.com. First correct answer will receive a gift certificate from amazon.com. Should there be no entry with all 14 correct answers by midnight on Tuesday, January 29, La Cieca will choose randomly among the entries with the highest number of correct answers.

In the meantime, please feel free to discuss and make wild guesses in the comments section.

UPDATE: As of Monday evening, La Cieca has not declared a winner. There is a tie for first place with two entries each naming 13 out of 14 correctly. Interestingly, they both mistake the same Lady. For those of you who might want to do a little more intensive study of the Ladies (and La Cieca doesn't mean only the lesbians in the audience!), here's the mp3 to download.

Ach! Hilde, weißt du, daß wir Ratten im Keller haben?

Weird sister

The inimitable, irrepressible Miss Tallulah Bankhead once more graces the studio of Unnatural Acts of Opera with a guest appearance on Apocryphal Opera Anecdote Theater. The legendary stage star joins Our Own La Cieca and Miss Cratchitt to perform a pair of scenes from Shakespeare's Macbeth. The main event, of course, is the second and third acts of Verdi's operatic version of the Scottish Tragedy, starring Shirley Verrett, Piero Cappuccilli, Nicolai Ghiaurov and Franco Tagliavini. Conducting this performance from La Scala on December 7, 1975 is Claudio Abbado.

Don't want to be a prima donna, donna, donna

"Believe you me, there is a lot of drama in the opera world, and you have to rise above it .... I really don't get into the drama. ... I don't cause scandals and I don't throw fits. For me, the thing to be admired is to be on time, be prepared and to give it 100 percent." That's Jennifer Larmore speaking "with a faint Southern accent" to The Cincinnati Enquirer. The mezzo firmly asserts "she's not a diva" in the very first paragraph of the piece.

Interestingly, there are lots of numbers in this article -- such as 500 (times Larmore claims to have sung Rosina), 90 (pounds she has lost in the past four years since gall bladder surgery) and, alas, 15 (top ticket price, in dollars, for her recital tonight University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music; students get in free). La Cieca will to the reader to explain why, sometimes at least, it may better to be a diva after all.

This is my belief, in brief

That grand old man of music André Previn is writing another opera, following up on the clamorous success of 1998's A Streetcar Named Desire. The commission for Houston Grand Opera is Brief Encounter, based on Noel Coward's one-act play Still Life as well as the screenplay for the eponymous film. (First Tennessee Williams, then Noel Coward ... surely a collaboration with Jean Genet is the next logical step!) Well, anyway, the premiere of Brief Encounter, most likely omitting the above imagery, is set for May of 2009. Too long a wait, you say? Well, in the meantime, sit back and enjoy an excerpt from Previn's one universally recognized masterpiece.

Lady Be Good

La Cieca is happy to announce a special performance to mark the return from exile of Unnatural Acts of Opera. Our program is a reprise of the first opera ever podcast on this site, Verdi's Macbeth featuring Shirley Verrett and Piero Cappuccilli. Claudio Abbado conducts the orchestra and chorus of La Scala on December 7, 1975.

Front burner

A legendary Lulu crosses over.

Wait 'til you've refined it

A controversial new production of Massenet's erotically-tinged opera Manon featuring "it girl" soprano Anna Netrebko opened last night in....

Oh, all right. Obviously that's not our Anna. In fact it's ecdysiast Dita Von Teese performing her signature "cocktail glass" strip. The model and performer (whose adorably mousy real name is Heather Sweet) has accepted an invitation to attend Vienna's prestigious Opera Ball later this month as the special guest Austrian businessman Richard Lugner. The 75-year-old real estate and construction mogul takes a celebrity to the glamorous gala every year.

Previous guests of "Mörtel" Lugner have included Joan Collins (1993), Ivana Trump (1994), Sophia Loren (1995), Grace Jones (1996), Sarah, Duchess of York (1997), Raquel Welch (1998), Faye Dunaway (1999), Jacqueline Bisset (2000), Farrah Fawcett (2001), Claudia Cardinale (2002), Pamela Anderson (2003), Andie MacDowell (2004), Geri Halliwell (2005), Carmen Electra (2006) and Paris Hilton (2007).

La Von Teese is known as a retro fashion muse and was briefly married to goth rocker Marilyn Manson.

Kiri gets it right

Shirley, no jest!

La Cieca hears that the one and only Miss Shirley Verrett will grace the airwaves this afternoon as an intermission guest during the broadcast of Macbeth.

Do join La Cieca in the comments section of this posting to enjoy this afternoon's broadcast -- especially the words of La Verrett!

Whatever happened to Katia Ricciarelli?

In fact, she became Peggy Lee.

Breakthrough of the century for artistic administrators

The diva hazard bonus: a special above-and-beyond payoff to those who have patiently put up with a colleague's diva antics. La Cieca cannot find any official instance of this bonus in the world of opera, but surely it's an incredible idea.

... Kim Cattrall was such a diva to work with on the Sex and the City movie that her costars are getting a secret bonus for dealing with Kim's prima donna behavior.

An insider tells Star, "Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon are getting a 'hush-hush' bonus for not being divas during filming and as a thank-you for putting up with Kim."

Natalie Déshabillée

La Dessay rehearses the "bathtub scene" from Manon.

Sorry, folks, the video is no longer available for embedding at the request of the uploader, Parsifal1979. You can view it, however, on the YouTube site.

Forced to bend her soul to a sordid role

Pint-sized Broadway dynamo Kristen Chenoweth will make her fully-staged role debut as Cunegonde in Candide at the English National Opera this summer. The Bernstein/Wilbur, Latouche, Parker, Hellman, Sondheim, Bernstein & Wheeler operetta will be performed in the Robert Carsen production previously seen at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris and La Scala, Milan. Performances begin June 23 for a 13-performance run.

According to The Stage, "popular tenor" Toby Spence will take on the title role, with other casting TBA. By an odd coincidence, the ENO are presenting a concert only a few weeks prior to this Candide starring a diva some might consider "dream casting" as The Old Lady. La Cieca supposes we should just dream on!

And will someone please wake La Cieca when the New York City Opera gets around to announcing the casting for their revival of the creaky Harold Prince staging of Candide?

Golden girl

Ageless Reri Grist sings "Somewhere" in a rehearsal for the 19th Annual Gypsy of the Year Competition, celebrated earlier this month. La Grist introduced this song 50 seasons ago when West Side Story premiered on Broadway. She is joined in this clip by Chita Rivera, Carol Lawrence and other members of the original company.