Sticks and stones

Here’s a story in which practically nobody in authority comes off well. Daniel Harding conducts a concert at La Scala that includes a selection from Tristan und Isolde, about which the Corriere della Sera‘s venerable critic Paolo Isotta snipes “Harding’s conducting was so soft it made you think he wanted to back the unfounded theory that Wagner was homosexual.” So then La Scala’s GM Stéphane Lissner kicks Isotta off the press list for the company: he can still review Scala events but will have to pay for his own ticket. [The Telegraph]