Hoosiers Ate My Brain

The Met's Don Pasquale

Moving into obscurity here, I just have to vent about the elitist bullshit of a review in today's Wall Street Journal where Heidi Waleson reviews the performance earlier this week of Don Pasquale at The Metropolitan Opera. She notes that the tenor singing the lead actually bowed out before the last act due to "allergies" and speculates it was because he was being upstaged by the lead soprano Anna Netrebko singing Norina. Whether or not Mr. Florez, the tenor, was so irked by Netrebko's supposed on-stage antics that he bowed out mid performance, is unknown. But, Ms. Waleson's main indictment of "hot soprano" Netrebko's performance? "Regrettably, the opening night audience loved this 'Don Pasquale'".

Well, God forbid an audience should enjoy an opera performance that Ms. Waleson herself didn't like! She seems to feel that the opera world's praise of Ms. Netrebko is somehow less deserved because the singer has "made a few questionable choices, such as an absurd DVD of opera-aria music videos released last year." Look, like it or not, opera is one of the only performing arts in the US right now with growing audiences. And it's not because companies and audiences are embracing the elitist attitudes that opera is only for the "cuhl-tured" with money. What Ms. Waleson may not have considered is that there may have been first time opera goers in the audience that night patronizing the Met because of that "regrettable" DVD of aria music videos. Ms. Waleson would have us believe that you must be a musical snob who loathes overacting and looks down upon fun in order to be *worthy* of opera -- and that this Don Pasquale was sub-par because if it. Ptui. Good for the audience who applauded the low-brow Netrebko. I hope they keep coming back -- if for no other reason than to annoy Ms. Waleson.

posted by braingirl @ 5:14 PM