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!

Where Nobody Knows Your Name

In order to stem what seems to be a rising tide of anonymous postings (and to save herself the hassle of deleting them) La Cieca offers these instructions on how to post comments using a Nickname.

When you click on the “POST A COMMENT” link, you go to the “Leave your comment” form. At the bottom of the form, select the second button, “Nickname” and type in the name you want to use on this posting. Then enter your comment in the box above.

When you click the “Publish your comment” button, your comment will appear with your Nickname, but with no other identifying information. Your email address will not be sent to Blogger or to parterre.com.

Sweet November

La Cieca’s DVR hard drive will be overflowing by the end of this November since the indispensable Turner Classic Movies has scheduled a whole month of “guest programmers.” Among the celebrities gracing the tube to introduce their favorite flicks will be some of particular interest to the parterre crowd. For example, this Thursday, November 8, playwright/actor Charles Busch will take a brief respite from his Die Mommie Die duties on the New York boards to present a quartet of women’s pictures: I Could Go on Singing, The Hard Way, Escape and A Woman’s Face.

Iconic Harvey Fierstein arrives on November 26 to introduce The Catered Affair (upon which his upcoming Broadway musical is based), as well as the camp classic The Women and two lesser-known pictures, The Boy with Green Hair and The Devil is a Sissy.

November 18 heralds the arrival of “one of the world’s most beloved and recognized figures in the worlds of opera and jazz,” Renée Fleming. Films featured that day will include Red Dust, Captains Courageous, Test Pilot, Gone with the… oh, La Cieca begs your pardon, that was Victor Fleming.

In fact, “The Beautiful Cineaste” has selected for our enjoyment a quartet of musical extravaganzas: The Great Waltz, Song of Love, Interrupted Melody and Maytime.

"Brokeback" it is!

An interview with director Krzysztof Warlikowski in the current issue of Takt, the house magazine for the Bayerisches Staatsoper, confirms that you, cher public, were exactly right about the “slant” of his new production of Yevgeny Onegin opening tonight in Munich. In the interview (available online, as is the rest of the magazine, in pdf format), Warlikowski draws parallels between Tchaikovksy’s life and several plot points of the opera, concluding

Homosexualität verbergen zu müssen und nicht verbergen zu können, das ist für mich der Schlüssel zu diesem Werk. Denken Sie nur an den Film “Brokeback Mountain” von Ang Lee: kein Schwulenfilm, sondern die Geschichte von zwei Menschen, die gegen ihre Leidenschaft ankämpfen müssen, weil die Gesellschaft sie ihnen nicht erlaubt – zwei Menschen, die ihre Liebe zueinander jahrelang nur in Blicken oder kurzen Berührungen leben dürfen.

The interviewer, naturally enough, goes for the followup: “Was hat das mit Tatjana und Onegin zu tun?” As it turns out, Warlikowski’s take is pretty much standard queer theory:

Auch Tatjana will gegen die Regeln der Gesellschaft leben – genau wie wie beiden Jungen aus “Brokeback Mountain”. In der Briefszene bietet sie Onegin ihre bedingungslose Liebe an, sie will sich das Recht nehmen, ein glückliches Leben führen zu dürfen – in einer Zeit, in der die Frauen, siehe ihre Mutter oder die Njanja, eben nicht glücklich waren und nicht aus Liebe geheiratet haben. Tatjana will genau das . . . . Für mich ist [Onegins] Duellszene mit Lenski fast eine liebesszene. Ist es nicht bemerkenswert, dass Lenski fast nie Olga ansingt, sondern immer nur Onegin? Für mich ist Onegin verliebt in Lenski . . . . So tötet Onegin Lenski in einem verzweifelten Akt der Selbstbehauptung, mit dem er nichts anderes herausschreit als “Ich bin nicht homosexuell!”.

The Staatsoper’s website offers a short video trailer for the production (unfortunately at the moment available only in a skimpy dialup-size stream) and the audio of the opening night will be webcast live beginning at 2:00 PM (via OperaCast).

"Hunkentenor" makes broadcast debut

UPDATE: And now, my dears, we’ve even reached the AP! (How long before we’re on the UP and every other damn P?)

La Cieca’s young, young, young friend Maury D’anatto writes: “Too funny, La Cieca: did you coin hunkentenor? Because there was just this intermission interview with Joseph Kaiser that went somewhat off the rails as Margaret Juntwait asked JK if he had heard people call him a hunkentenor, and then through some rather complicated chain of associations, he revealed that he sleeps naked. It was awkward/hilarious.”

Well, yes, La Cieca will have to plead “guilty” to coining this suddenly mainstream term; however it is you, cher public, who have catapulted it into the lexicon. Brava, you go on like this!

Whatever happened to Marwdew Czgowchwz?

Ever since everyone’s favorite apocryphal diva (with the possible minority exception of Lena Geyer), the oracular Oltrano herself, Marwdew Czgowchwz, vanished across the ocean at a time (time out of mind) that was somehow both 1956 and 1975 and yet neither, La Cieca, like all the rest of you, has reread her first copy of James McCourt’s novel to tatters, purchased the sempiternally-awaited reissue, and wondered, wondered… well, after all, what’s left for her?

Cher public, we’re about to find out. This month, Turtle Point Press releases Now Voyagers: Some Divisions of the Saga of Mawrdew Czgowchwz, Oltrano, Authenticated by Persons Represented Therein, Book One: The Night Sea Journey. This flamboyant followup tells the story of the charged atmosphere surrounding the legendary diva (and possible CIA agent) turned psychoanalyst. According to Publishers Weekly, the novel

resurrects the literary, musical and gay scene of 1950s New York. About half relates to Czgowchwz’s 1956 trip across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary with her consort, Jacob Beltane, to Ireland, where she is to star in Pilgrim Soul, a Douglas Sirk–like movie about the Irish revolt of 1916. Much of the rest relates to the Gotham-centered peregrinations of Mawrdew’s friend, the gay poet S.D.J. Fitzjames O’Maurigan …. The most stylistically astonishing chapters are intermezzos of conversation caught on the wing at Everard’s Bath house, the book’s pre-Stonewall place to meet and greet in gay New York.

This fall’s must-read is now on sale at Amazon.com.

E Susanna vien

La Cieca predicted a cast change earlier, and what do you know, so it came to pass! Soprano Lisette Oropesa will sing the Tuesday prima of the Met’s revival of Le nozze di Figaro and at least one more performance. She is jumping in for the enceinte Isabel Bayrakdarian. Ms. Oropesa is not only a member of the Met’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program but (even more impressively) she is La Cieca’s homegirl since she is a graduate of LSU in dear old Baton Rouge! It should be noted, however, that she and La Cieca matriculated in different centuries.

Meanwhile, in Chicago, Angela Gheorghiu has been fired from Lyric Opera’s production of La bohème which is scheduled to open Monday, October 1. Thundered General Director William Mason, “Miss Gheorghiu has missed 6 of 10 rehearsals, including the piano dress rehearsal and both staging rehearsals with the orchestra. She missed one of the most critical stage-orchestra rehearsals when she left the city for New York without permission, a direct violation of her contract.” La Gheorghiu was in fact spotted in the audience for the Met’s prima of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette on Tuesday night.

The news is somewhat less dire for other members of the Gheorghiu famille. Those of you cher public who missed out on Roberto “Million Dollar Legs” Alagna’s stylish Roméo this week may get another chance at seeing his collaboration with Anna Netrebko in the Gounod love story. La Cieca hears that Alagna will return in December to fill the “TBA” slots on the 8th, 12th and 15th, including the broadcast and HD telecast. Matthew Polenzani, La Cieca hears, will take over the role on December 20.

The winner and new diva

La Cieca wasn’t “in the house” for the Lucia prima last night like so many of her colleagues; instead she hosted perhaps the most popular of all her online chats thus far. Approximately 120 of you cher public logged in at some point during the night, with 75 or so on average staying for the long haul. Say what you will about Natalie Dessay or even Stephen Costello, there was really only one genuine “star is born” moment last night, and here, as dear Mathilde Marchesi would say, is “la nouvelle Melba” –

Our nomination for Camp Diva of the 2007-2008 Season: Miss Blythe Danner!

Something to chat about

La Cieca’s chat returns Monday night to welcome in the new Met season. Topic of discussion: the evening’s prima of the new production of Lucia di Lammermoor, as broadcast on . Please check back on this site after 5:00 pm Monday for a link to the room, which will open at 6:15 pm for the 6:30 start of the opening night performance.

Note that any of you who do not have a current subscription to Sirius can get a trial 3-day pass in time for the Opening Night chat. The event is also broadcast on RealNetworks.

Are any of you cher public attending this Lucia at one of the outdoor simulcasts? If you are, why not bring a laptop along and chat along with the rest of us? It’s easy, now that the Lincoln Center plaza has WiFi!

On the cheap

Those of the cher public who want to attend opera on the cheap or who just want to get a jump on the season should check out New York City Opera’s Opera for All program. The NYCO is offering three performances this week with all tickets priced at $25: a gala concert on September 6, La boheme on the 7th and Don Giovanni on the 8th. The outreach effort continues during the rest of the season when the NYCO plans to offer “50 or more” orchestra seats to each performance at the $25 price.