That favorite strawman of closed-minded critics, “Regie opera,” is the target of yet another limp-noodle critical flailing, this time from a chap by the name of Geoffrey Wheatcroft — as if someone whose mugshot is so obviously a emblem of bowtied entitlement has any right to pronounce judgment on anyone else’s visual taste. Just how tired is the Wheatcroft whinge? Well, he’s still complaining about the Peter Sellars production of Nozze di Figaro, a staging that hasn’t been revived since the late 1980s. [The Guardian]