nadir and nadirer
YET ANOTHER UPDATE: March 9, 3:30 PM: After only 30 hours and on only the third try (or perhaps fourth, depending on how often you refresh the page), the New York Times has managed to report accurately the personnel and repertoire of a single selection at a concert that took place three days ago:Â
There’s still no trace of what you might call criticism here, but, hey, Bernard Holland filed four pieces this week (an average of over 200 words a day!), including this obviously labor-intensive listing:
“TRISTAN UND ISOLDE” (Monday) A much awaited “Tristan,†with Deborah Voigt and Ben Heppner in the title roles, and with James Levine conducting, has evidently been so awaited that all seats are gone.
UPDATE: March 9, 11:30 AM: After more than 24 hours and surely dozens of emails from annoyed readers, the New York Times has finally “corrected” their blunder (see below) about the Opera Orchestra of New York’s “recent” gala concert:
La Cieca will congratulate the Times editorial staff for uncovering the well-kept secret that the duet “Mira d’acerbe lagrime” is in fact from Il trovatore and not from Bellini’s Norma. Further kudos are due for their investigative journalism in revealing that Dolora Zajick and Aprile Millo are the same person.
March 8, 11:48 AM: All right, it’s time either to euthanize Bernard Holland or else to find a nice farm out in the country where he can live out his few waning days. In this morning’s Times, the notoriously slovenly scribe types:
Shall we all say it together? The program was changed; Millo sang not Norma but Trovatore, opposite not Zajick but Stephen Gaertner.
Mere musical illiteracy might explain a reviewer’s confusion of Bellini’s best-known opera with a Verdi warhorse, but mistaking a bearded baritone for a mezzo-soprano who was on the same stage on a half hour previously requires either legal brain death or physical absence from the auditorium during a program he was assigned and paid to cover.
True, Holland’s gaffe is not so grave as to bamboozle a nation into a bloody and futile war, but, on the other hand, Judith Miller never mistook Sadaam Hussein for Valerie Plame.
2:00 PM: No correction yet in the online edition.
4:45 PM: Still no correction.
10:45 PM: Even now, no correction.
Since TT is always fluffing male singers in print, it IS great that La C is ruffling the NY Times!!
And TT strikes again in his article about Van Cliburn in yesterday’s Arts section. I was shocked (SHOCKED, I TELL YOU) to discover that Mr. Cliburn shares a house with a “long time friend”. Whatever could that mean, I ask sarcastically.
I just received word that “the bearded baritone” Stephen Gaertner (occasionally mistaked as Dolora Zajick depending on the reviewer) will be interviewed on Sirius radio during one of the the intermissions of Lucia di Lamermoor on Thursday evening March 20th.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/08/arts/music/08quel.html?ref=music
Correction! Apparently “The errors resulted from the reviewer’s confusion over his notes.”
…..yes.
And they now admit he’s a reviewer, not a critic.
Mea culpa! Even after the Times correction, I felt that I needed to confirm that it was Millo and not Blythe. Called OONY. It was, in fact, Millo (though “unwell”–perhaps on meds that make her assume Blythe-like proportions). Time to get my eyes checked!
“The errors resulted from the reviewer’s confusion over his notes.â€
… as well as some serious gender confusion issues.
How exited you must be — how proud of your investigative journalism! Oh, how superior, how knowledgeable… indeed, why does the NYT not fire Holland and hire you?
Perhaps because an anonymous hack and his or her blog are not quite up to the challenge either? And critiquing a few howlers in an otherwise astounding output of quality writing of someone else does not qualify?
At least we can sleep safely that “La Cieca” keeps taps on the powers that be.