Christopher Webber textually harrasses Denis Fodor:

>..., the droit de seigneur was very much up for debate as a
>symbol of what was rotten in Beaumarchais' pre-revolutionary Paris in
>much the same way as sexual harassment is part of social political debate
>in modern America.  Both were (are) perceived by their critics as OK for
>one class of society and one sex, provided it was kept decently quiet,
>but not for others.  That's why the original play (toned down suitably
>by Da Ponte for operatic consumption, though Mozart raised the emotional
>stakes straight back up) was such a hot potato in its time.
>It was the exposure of social issues through sexual conduct which made
>it interesting and internationally celebrated; and in presenting the
>opera clearly enough to allow us to recognise an equivalent, modern hot
>potato, Sellars did the opera no violence whatsoever - quite the reverse....

You're right: no violence.  Just awkwardness.  Nozze in this our age
is cherished for its Mozart rather than its Beaumarchais and, for it,
more enjoyable as a diversion from today's forced feedings of sotchial
signifikanz and politikal korrektness.  If we want an evening of What
Makes Sammy Run, the we go to the library and draw it from there.  Sellars,
I do agree, is one of better of the ilk of contemporary opera regisseurs
but that doesn't redeem the peccations of an overstaffed, overstuffed,
overblown, and over-self-centered profession.Let Mozart do his own thing.
(And let Sellars try his hand at something contemporary, like the Danse
Macabre, whuich he's done, and done rather well.)

Denis Fodor