BREAKING: Opera Enjoyed by All
The NYT’s ace scribe Bernard “Scoop” Holland breathlessly spills his latest discoveries about that newfangled entertainment called “opera” today. Didja know, for example, that a lot of opera is long and boring, but there’s this one opera called Cavalleria rusticana that’s not as long as most (” it’s the only opera I know that may be too short”)?
Cav, which Mr. Holland types “acts like a single, sweeping transitive verb,” has a lot in common with Pagliacci, if you overlook that elusive transitive quality. “Both pieces,” Holland confides, “concern triangular adultery. . . . Both leave behind a sufficient number of dead bodies.”
Trifles, really. “Indeed, if these pieces can lay any claim to deep thinking, it is that they are at once celebrations of tabloid brutality and of a bygone theatrical artifice since supplanted by machines, the wonders of electricity and the lessened imaginations of spectators.”
Holland then rips the lid off the secret of “famous” Franco Zeffirelli‘s success as a stage designer (“upscale tastes”), though he is maybe a little disappointed at Zeffirelli’s “tame” set for this double bill. Alas, the original designs for gold and marble slums paved in mother-of-pearl cobblestones must have got lost in the mail.
Oh, there were some singers too. Holland lavishes an adjective each on the leads.
Sarcasim isn’t becoming, Dear.
Hilarious — and thanks for the link! : )
Please let me know what a “sweeping transitive verb” is, related to an opera performance? Are there any operas that could be “raging pronouns” or “embedded preterites?” And is there a proof reader at the NYT who could have caught Mr. Holland’s crimes of prose?
hay hook… the days of the editor and proof reader would seem to be over at most publishing companies – newspapaper, magazine, books. The only proofing most articles seem to get is SpellCheck and we all know how accurate it is!
PADDYPIG, as usual, I agree with you. I love the sheer luxury of Price’s voice not really looking for much drama although it was there. I did NOT care to find it; I just get lost (in a marvelous way) in that radiant sound. For sheer drama, I go elsewhere (my mom for example!).
Hay Hook: As a copy editor I wholeheartedly agree with your comments — SpellCheck indeed! And I’m still waiting for an opera to be characterized as a “protubrant antonym.” Oh, wait – that could be “Falstaff.”
I must say I concur — I looked to the NYT to see what they had to say about the singers and didn’t find it until the last paragraph, reduced to an adjective or two. Good God, this production is over 30 years old — everyone has seen it (telecast at least twice). What we want to know is ‘how are the singers?’
It is a shame that the NYT hires music critics who don’t actually like music. Mr Holland is the worst offender. To read his columns is to find out that concert-going is a dreadful bore. With friends like him, does classical music really need enemies?
Rereading Mr. Holland’s essay, he seems to be shocked to find that play plots involve triangular adulteries and dead bodies on the stage. I thought that kind of stuff has been packing them into theatres for the last couple thousand years. Where has this fellow been keeping himself? And did he ever take a theatre class?