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In lieu of donations, send flowers
Avid scoopster Dan Wakin just couldn’t wait until next Tuesday like the rest of us, and so he’s spilled enough details about NYCO’s “next” season to make it bleeding obvious 2011-12 will also be the...
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George at the bat
UPDATE: Complete press release after the jump! You know La Cieca will be following NYCO’s press conference starting today at 1:00 pm. The Twittering community will carry live updates from the event,...
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Buyer’s market
La Cieca was cced the following letter sent by a “long-time patron of NYCO” in response to “the recently received Subscription Renewal Brochure.” She has withheld the patron’s name by request. Good...
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Cash memory
“The New York City Opera is at an exciting and critical junction in its approach to opera and its ability to connect to audiences in the broader New York City community. City Opera’s new innovative...
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When we deaf awaken
Open your eyes, sleepyheads! In the news this morning, our own JJ raves about Satyagraha at the Met (“a masterpiece of musical and visual art”); the ever-articulate Nico Muhly takes aim at the Met’s...
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The Ten Percent Solution
NYCO’s George Steel has “…a vision of gradually increasing productions, arriving at 10, with 40 performances…. the company would reach the 10-production benchmark by 2025…. Only about 10 percent of...
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“ZERO dollars!”
“City Opera Management has passed on an offer from the unions representing its musicians and singers that could have saved the company some much-needed cash. The proposal would have required members of...
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NYCO/union talks break down
Local 802 and AGMA have rejected New York City Opera’s “final offer,” placing the company at an “impasse,” according to an email from George Steel to members of the company’s board. The email, obtained...
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Broad Street Baby?
La Cieca hears that the New York City Opera is moving its administrative offices to 75 Broad Street, a location you surely remember as The International Telephone and Telegraph Building. The a 1928...
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She’s fallen and she can’t get up
“New York City Opera performed La Traviata at BAM Sunday afternoon. That’s who, what, where and when. But this was a performance without a ‘why’.” Our Own JJ is not amused in the New York Post.
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Boy meets ghoul
“Zombies are impossible to escape these days — on television, film, video games, even reworkings of Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies). And now New York City Opera has given us a “Così Fan...
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From Hell
“About the only good thing that can be said for New York City Opera’s Orpheus, which opened Saturday night, is that it made the rest of the company’s feeble season seem scintillating by comparison.”...
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Lyre’s poker
The Underworld as corporate boardroom, Pluto a “suit,” the damned a bunch of clerks tapping away at laptops. When the lyre of Orpheus is heard (it never is seen, and it sounds like a recorder), rose...
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Tony award
“For decades New York City Opera was a model of an organization with a clear mission. Now there may be no opera company, orchestra or ensemble more in need of a mission reboot…. Though Mr. Steel has...
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All for the best
George Steel (center) announces that New York City Opera is destroying, giving away or selling off most of its stock of repertory productions. Presumably a few of the old sets will be kept on hand to...
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George sent me
La Cieca is sure it’s nothing, nothing at all, but she does think it’s curious that (per a tipster) George Steel has quietly called a staff meeting for NYCO tomorrow, with further confabs with the...
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Sunk costs
More bad news: “New York City Opera’s musical library and archives, located 75 Broad St., have been damaged by water that all but filled the basement of the building. Hundreds of boxes were submerged...
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Crave the date
It only just occurred to La Cieca that the opening night of New York City Opera’s 2013 season—the premiere of their new production of Powder Her Face—is February 15, a date that sounds oddly familiar...
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And the 2013 Pubies go to…
One startling upset catches the eye among the many winners (if that is the word) of the 2013 Parterre Box Awards. The surprise is “Worst New Production at the Met,” a dubious honor won by David Alden‘s...
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Slow but steady
With almost three weeks to go, New York City Opera’s Kickstarter campaign is only $956,985 short of its goal. [@coopnytimes]
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A star is reborn?
The New York City Opera Board has signed an agreement to transfer its name and intellectual property to NYCO Renaissance, Ltd., which is spearheaded by Roy Niederhoffer, Chairman and Jeffrey Laikind,...
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Ambizioso spirto, tu sei NYCO
New York City Opera Renaissance certainly seems to have its eyes on the future, joining in a partnership with the Teatro del Giglio and Opera Carolina to present La fanciulla del West. NYCO-R’s general...
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A hole in the Hedda
“Hopper’s Wife, a chamber opera with music by Stewart Wallace set to an obscenity-strewn text by Michael Korie, turned out to be the most unpleasant piece as I’ve heard since NYCO’s notorious fiasco...
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Cuts like a knife
Aside from being the choice of the revived New York City Opera for its opening double-bill this season, you may wonder what Rachmaninoff’s Aleko and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci have in common. Both operas...
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Musical theater of the absurd
It’s easy to see why Leonard Bernstein’s Candide was a flop when it premiered on Broadway. A quick look through Voltaire’s source material reveals a plot full of obscenity and atrocity: floggings,...
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Vo’ farmi più gaia, più fulgida ancora
This float (artist’s conception) will perhaps anchor New York City Opera’s presence in tomorrow’s Pride parade. Says the company’s rep, “City Opera invites you, our fans, to march with the artists who...
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“More wait!”
New York City Opera today offered a demi-announcement of half their next season. The season will open with the Glimmerglass Festival staging of Robert Ward‘s The Crucible, which the company premiered...
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Of two minds
Mezzo Blythe Gaissert, Hannah after in NYCO’s As One. I wanted to like As One. I really did. This chamber opera, with only one character, two singers, and a string quartet who occasionally serve as a...
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Neither pure nor wise nor good
What better way to mark the passing of the monumental Hal Prince than with a recollection of that nexus at which his and Leonard Bernstein‘s worst work intersected? //www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IG-3aeR92E
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