It will not be tonight

Even though La Cieca is sure you will agree with her that "Meglio stasera, che domani o mai. Domani chi lo sa, quel che sarà," the fact is the server people are still working on parterre.com with a "go" time set for sometime early tomorrow. Be assured that your doyenne will inform you here at the "Exile" site when we're moving back,

So, while we're waiting, La Cieca invites you to enjoy this video representation of how she imagines herself and you, the cher public, in the swinging virtual ski lodge of cyberspace.

Will the dancing Marguerites please wait in the wings?

P.S. The old site will be back tomorrow, promise!

Unitasking

If you're wondering why the relatively inexperienced George Steel was tapped for the demanding job of hauling the New York City Opera out of the basement -- instead of front-runner Francesca Zambello, well, maybe this is why:

Zambello, currently in London creating a joint Royal Opera and Royal Ballet production of Tchaikovsky's comic rarity "The Tsarina's Slippers" ... in discussion with producers Ben Sprecher and Louise Forlenza over whether "Rebecca" should open in North America or London.... three-quarters of her way through a Ring cycle for San Francisco Opera and is developing an opera-house-scale version of "Show Boat" at Chicago Lyric Opera... Meanwhile, for the Guthrie in Minneapolis, Zambello and playwright Marsha Norman are adapting Louise Erdrich's passionate novel "The Master Butchers Singing Club" into a new play with music... also developing a musical with "Les Miserables" composer Claude-Michel Schonberg.... A scaled-down version of Zambello's Disney show "The Little Mermaid" is in the works.... her current tour of "Little House on the Prairie"....

Or, on the other hand, maybe even the generally clueless NYCO board were appalled at Zambello's midwestern-drag-show level of visual taste:

Shoot Your Shot

Maestro Wenarto shows us how Tosca should be done... as directed by that exciting Regie wunderkind Luc Bondage.

Knight und Träume

Jonas Kaufmann in his role debut(!) as Lohengrin.



This is a great, great artist.

Joyce DiDonato in Maria Stuarda

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

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.

When Ladies Meet

And now, the solution to the "Sleepwalking Scene" quiz.

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!

A Star is Reborn

That superstar of the podosphere, Miss Frances Gumm, is back after six months of laying fallow. Or is La Cieca thinking of Frank Sinatra? Anyway, one of our absolute favorite online destinations, JudyCast, has returned with its distinctive mélange of entertainment gossip and otherworldy warbling as gaily subversive as ever. (No explanation is given for the hiatus, but La Cieca suspects that the recent TCM screening of the bizarre 1968 flick Skiddoo dislodged whatever was creatively blocking Carol Channing and the other JudyCast partipants.)

Gaîté Ancienne

La fée Manto (Francois Piolino) turns up the heat on old coot Anselme (René Schirrer) in this scene from Rameau's Les Paladins.

Mad about the boy

La Cieca is all for crossover, but...

In response to several questions from commenters, La Cieca will say, no, she does not believe that Vitas takes "the" high e-flat. However, there is another genetic male on YouTube who does have the note: Lallanzinho!

Toy toy toy

The Lego Opera, previously heard performing Il trovatore, has returned with a new and innovative production of Tosca.

Lego bricks outnumber human beings 62 to 1. Did you know that?

Hunk 10, Tenor 3

A gifted amateur by the name of Izzy Anderson takes on Verdi's Duke of Mantua.

Mr. Anderson is one of the regulars on the must-see Wenarto YouTube site. (That's the celebrated Wenarto himself conducting this selection, though usually he is found center stage.)

Spanish inquisition

Given the current lively discussion of Peter Konwitschny's regie of Don Carlos, La Cieca thought the cher public might like to see (and to debate) the "Celestial Voice" scene from this production.

UPDATE: Since the discussion has now broadened to involve the context of this scene, La Cieca has substituted a player with a selection of scenes from this production.

O brother where art thou

An Italian TV report on the already infamous all-Alagna-all-the-time Orphée.

Now, David Alagna may not be one of the world's great stage directors, but he certainly is among the cutest!

You love Lucy

La Cieca pulled a string or two and managed to get permission to embed a clip from the VAI Lucia so recently lauded by Our Own Niel Rishoi. Of course YouTube video and audio is severely compressed, but the imaginative viewer will surely get the gist that this is a performance for the ages.

...and tenderly beckons, Moby Dick, dearest Moby Dick!

As dear Rosalind Russell used to say, "It's about this whale..."

Honestly insincere

[Via Likely Impossibilities]

Kiri gets it right