“Siegfried in schoolboy shorts cooking a sword on a mobile canteen; Mélisande holed up in welfare accommodation, with Pelléas sadistically tying her to the wall by her hair… Carmen trying in vain to be a centre of erotic attention while a near naked chorus copulates on stage; Mozart’s Entführung aus dem Serail set in a Berlin brothel; Verdi’s masked ball with the assembled cast squatting on toilets so as to void their bowels…” Fans of the “context-free laundry list” school of opera criticism will be happy to know that “the world’s preeminent philosopher in the field of aesthetics,” Roger Scruton, has now shouldered the white man’s burden of rescuing the art form from interpretation. [Future Symphony Institute]
Cooting edge
Fans of the “context-free laundry list” school of opera criticism will be happy to know that “the world’s preeminent philosopher in the field of aesthetics,” Roger Scruton, has now shouldered the white man’s burden of rescuing opera from interpretation.
By La Cieca La Cieca
James Jorden (who wrote under the names "La Cieca" and "Our Own JJ") was the founder and editor of parterre box. During his 20 year career as an opera critic he wrote for the New York Times, Opera, Gay City News, Opera Now, Musical America and the New York Post. He also raised his voice in punditry on National Public Radio. From time to time he directed opera, including three unsuccessful productions of Don Giovanni. He also contributed a regular column on opera for the New York Observer. James died in October 2023.
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Tell us: What was the best of 2025?
Parterre Box concludes the thrilling first year of Talk of the Town by inviting your lightning rod opinions on several more categories of operatic argumentation.