Bruce Alan Wilson <[log in to unmask]> writes:

>Let me get this straight:
>
>An imaginatively-staged, well-performed presentation of a
>not-as-often-as-it-should-be performed opera.
>
>The audience loved it.
>
>This is, somehow, a Bad Thing.
>
>Am I missing something?
>
>[The music?  How dare someone care about that!  Of course, the music
>should never be allowed to interfere with the special effects.  -Dave]

I find Dave's editorial snipe unjustified.  Janacek's music - like it or
not - is written for the theatre, not for the study or a large armchair.

Mr Wilson is evidently quite as baffled as I am by Mr Gereben's apparently
bizarre distaste for the audience, singers, staging and just about every
other aspect of the art form on which he expends so much time and so many
words.

Christopher Webber,  Blackheath, London,  UK.
http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm
"ZARZUELA!"