Peter Gelb, who recently has been asking the Met’s rank and file for salary concessions, had his own compensation bumped up 36% for the 2007-08 season.

According to Bloomberg News, Gelb earned about $1.5 million during his second year as the Met’s general manager. Since then he and the Met’s senior staff have taken 10% cuts.

What La Cieca finds particularly intriguing about the Bloomberg piece is that it reveals that Gelb still takes home a smaller paycheck than Joe Volpe did at the end of his Met incumbency.  Uncle Joe’s final haul was $1.7 million for the financial year ending July 2006.

La Cieca is going to bid farewell to Prima Donna and Rufus Wainwright, for the moment anyway.  But before you doyenne actually, you know, goes (i.e., “ma tu ben mio, meco ritorna in pace”) she’s just going to say this:

A piece like Prima Donna is exactly the sort of thing (or at least one sort of thing) that the New York City Opera ought to be offering. It would sell like crazy, foster the most intense debate both online and in the meat universe, and just generally be scandalous.

That the leading role seems to have “Lauren Flanigan” written on it in letters of fire doesn’t hurt either. Lauren as an insane camp opera singer? That’s what Ethan Mordden calls “Gable as Rhett casting.”

Aggregated for your aggravation, here’s the critical response to Prima Donna, the new opéra by that little gay wolverine fellow. [Clef Notes]

This week, La Cieca sends in the clowns (among others). Remember, cher public, honest guesses only: no blurting out the answer if you recognize the production!

Ah, now this makes sense — of a sort –even in French. Spoilers follow:

Sacha Voronine, célèbre chanteur sur le point d’épouser le top-modèle Nathalie, est victime de John Darow, qui tente de l’assassiner en l’assommant et le jetant à la mer. Sacha est recueilli par des pêcheurs mais il a perdu la mémoire et prend le nom de Samson. C’est à l’occasion du passage d’un cirque que la mémoire de Samson commence à se réveiller, lorsqu’il entend un air qu’il connaissait et qu’il se met à chanter. Décidant de partir avec la troupe du cirque, il finit par être engagé par le directeur d’une radio qui le lance sur les ondes sous le nom de « chanteur inconnu ». Nathalie, entretemps mariée à John, reconnaît sa voix et veut le retrouver ; Sacha la repousse car il est tombé amoureux de Maria. John cherche de nouveau à éliminer Sacha, puis tente de kidnapper Maria. Après une folle course-poursuite [naturellement! - LC], Sacha triomphe de John qui est arrêté par la police.

Well, not just like, perhaps. La Cieca can hardly be accused of having “maturity and plenty of security” and dear JJ does not exactly boast “the purity along with the unsurety that comes with being only twenty-one.”  But, for the sake of the argument, let’s just say they see things in very different ways. 

Take, for example, this photograph of the current revival of Tosca at the Royal Opera House:

Now, La Cieca looks at this image and thinks, “Such drama! Such excitement! Surely this is demented opera at its (visual) best!”

Whereas JJ casts his critical eye and reflects, “So we have one singer who doesn’t rehearse (Angela Gheorghiu) and another singer who rehearses, but then does something completely different when he gets onstage (Bryn Terfel). And those two unpredictable artists are wrestling atop a rickety table only inches away from real lit candles. This cannot end well.”

“And this is assuming,” JJ adds, “the signora’s bazooms do not pop out of her bodice. How am I supposed to listen to music when I have all this stuff to worry about?”

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

The first rule in writing an artist’s program bio is to find some interesting and unique detail that will catch the reader’s interest. This tidbit need not be directly relevant to the production at hand or even to the artist’s ostensible talent, so long as it’s, as the journalists like to say, “hooky.”

Which is why La Cieca is simply beating herself up right now since this definitively hooky bio detail is already taken:

“A self-confessed egomaniac, he once went blind while living in the Chelsea Hotel, New York, addicted to crystal meth.” [Times Online]