Too darn hot

How hot was it yesterday? So hot that New York Grand Opera canceled their Central Park performance of Tosca, that’s how hot it was. Rather ironic, too, because Tosca is specifically set in midsummer in metropolitan Rome, where the climate is comparable to yesterday’s Gotham scorcher. Remember that the next time you see a Tosca sweep into the Palazzo Farnese in a long-sleeved velvet dress and ermine cape . . .

In fact, La Cieca is already beginning to shudder at the thought of the Met in the Park performances scheduled for the last week of August. Traditionally that last week before Labor Day is the most miserably hot and humid stretch of the summer in the city, which is why everyone who possibly can get away does get away. That number of course does not include La Cieca, who never goes anywhere and will during that wretched week cling to her outer borough abode as always. Who knows, if this whole global warming thing keeps up, maybe the Met can start doing their Park performances during their dark week in January.

Meanwhile, over at the Times, “Captain Obvious” Tommasini notices that at Bayreuth some members of the audience boo the stage director. And did he remember to mention the covered pit? Or was he too distracted by all those “pasty-skinned and delicate young men in lacy robes?” (Since when has the Times hired Blanche du Bois as their chief critic?)