A singspiel for our times

Now that our fabulist President

has dispatched his Secretary of

State to concoct a libretto for

an abduction from an Ottoman ser-

aglio gone awry, all confidently

anticipate an enormous enhance-

ment of his original premise, a

band of rogue murderers infil-

trating one autocrat's embassy

in another's secured city, only

to chop the captive for lunch.

Much prettier music, much mer-

rier ribaldry; with a score al-

ready in the public domain, by

no less than Mozart. Ah, so much

to dazzle: who could rue the in-

cidental disappearance of the

corpus delicti? Take that, O.J. 

We remember, of course, the General Assembly

It's where poor old Townsend, of UNIPO,

was expected to render some sort of ad-

dress, in Hitchcock's N by NW. Might've

made it, too, but for a knife toss when

meeting Cary Grant. Oh my. These things

happen, to try our souls. And so it was

that our President, that genital-seizing

prophet of American greatness, remark-

ed on his superiority to any predecessor

ever, and positively brought down the

house in herd farts and lowing moos we

cannot be asked to transcribe, in res-

pect for his indelicate posture. Even

then, there's the bell, as Grace Kelly

breathlessly remarked to Ray Milland, be-

fore that faculty came under duress, in 

Dial M. Do we ever ask ourselves, how we

might otherwise get by, without farce?

Possibly not often enough. Yet, more to

the point, how can one compensate the

UN, for putting our President on-stage

during the Interval, so we might safely

graze amongst our kind, in rustic peace?

Tony Ray-Jones
Glyndebourne
Christie Estate
1967

New news of Harvey Weinstein ii

If I could defend Donald Trump for the
criminal assaults he has boasted of a-
gainst women, I'd probably be morally
obligated to do so. But we have Ameri-
can "patriot Christians" to carry that
impossible cross, to every vale of im-
pious wreckage he can bring upon this
nation, the Constitution most of all,
instead of allowing him to be brought
to the secular justice awaiting him.

The word isn't mine, wreckage. It was
reported by the Post today, in a pro-
test by Anne Sofie von Otter, a voice
we've associated with harmony since a
pin dropped in the first hall she en-
tered. Donald Trump teaches us, star-
dom is an immunity from reproach for
gross misconduct, yet even this is a
lie, unless you have those divisions
Stalin marshaled against the Papacy.

Now this lady is a widow because one
really can break a privileged person
after all, with piety she witnessed.
When people deny the existence of i-
rony, terror reigns to protect them.
I'll take secular justice, if I may;
it has less to learn of God's mercy.

New news of Harvey Weinstein

I saw a film last night about Southies growing up and venturing beyond their fence, Good Will Hunting. A story full of interest in the American vein of making it, at the expense of stripping away of ties. Alas, the film has in common with a sparkling fantasy on Shakespeare in Love, a moral stain, to earn it a place on our proscribed roster of illegitimacy. Harvey Weinstein was involved.

I am told I have a problem with how good we are, to allow myself these viewings, these listenings to James Levine's Onegin, my periodic visits to Monticello and the Mission Santa Barbara. It's not so much that I'm sentimental about old ties, as that I'm impertinent toward my new fences. Not so long ago, it was possible for thoughtful people to go to the opera, Peter Grimes, in which the artist's own falls from grace did not bind them, voluntarily blinded to every layer of its tragedy. Benjamin Britten preyed on boys, and we had to decide, does this deprive us of the finest opera in our language?

I'm not looking for Harvey Weinstein movies, but if there's a good one, I'm willing to see it. At the same time, I've lost any sense of ties with Britten, well enough to respect his music more, not less. Manichaeans clamor loudest where human frailty lends the thrill of punishment, the harshest of which is always self-imposed. But we still decide where we are. I won't live in Southie in my soul.

Suppose it were Friday cxviii: Just enough for clapping

The Crown is catching up. The Times reported yesterday that dead persons convicted of crimes invented by British sodomy statutes are to be pardoned. Not sure what this means for Maurice or the greatest operas in the English language, but here's hoping their discretion keeps a seat apart for Oscar Wilde.

E.M. Forster and
  Benjamin Britten
Aldeburgh

The shirt tail and the seamstress

 We don't usually quibble with
 Geoffrey Chaucer, but our many
 shirtlifters, spotted in stained
 glass windows and insulating
 tapestries, marble and bronze,
 and canvas and oils, could well
 have been spared renascences to-
 day if he'd admitted a prescient
 seamstress to his epic parade.

 Such broad self-ripping of 
 bodice is upon us now, that 
 one scarcely has the chance 
 to evaluate the tissues for 
 their treatment by the trade.

 Eccovi il medico, we seem
 to have our Despina at last,
 and as in all her appearances,
 just in time.






















Rob Allen

Donald Trump went to Texas last week

Albert Herring, eat your heart out.

The homecoming queen went trolling
for loot in River Oaks, and barbar-
ous thrills in rally after rally of
famished sociopaths. Along the way,
he warned the squeamish to shut up,
advising he would do this himself;
revoked the free press credentials
of the essential morning paper for
everyone in government, from coast
to coast; promised to decapitate
the laws of libel in protection of
political expression; and celebrat-
ed a dominance of his Party which
saw the Speaker of the House chang-
ing his diaper at every interview.
Apart from the latter's discomfort,
these are acts of pure despotism.

  But wasn't he yar to his
  enthusiasts, and positive
  catnip still to a media
  bedazzled, It could hap-
  pen here. Everyone who
  wasn't raised, 24/7, on
  Crisco, sugar, and salt,
  Fox, and Koch casuists,
  professed to be baffled.
  But we scarcely possess
  an excuse. We cordially
  begged to differ with
  friends who indulged the
  lies of Trump's Party so
  long, we consoled each
  other with their ingen-
  uity in controlling the
  attack dogs they'd bred.
  And now, It has happened
  here. Their Mengelian ex-
  periment has whelped their
  Caudillo, indifferent to
  catechism, in raw control.

     Wasn't everyone warned at home,

     a soul bears a responsibility?

     Donald Trump has let it loose,

     from the house that warped it.

     The ultimate horror of Trump

     is not for whom he reviles, but

     for those who love him. There,

     is the greatest crime politics

     can commit. It's happened here.

So in the afternoon we listened to Così fan tutte

   and after his

   dinner I gave

   him a rawhide

   toy, serving

   myself a Mus-

   cadet with a

   pigeon over

   pea shoots in

   a pale vinaig-

   rette. Gugli-

   elmo with his

   whiskers made

   us laugh.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Lorenzo da Ponte

Così fan tutte

1789

Herbert von Karajan

Philharmonia Orch & Chor

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Nan Merriman

Rolando Panerai

Léopold Simoneau

Lisa Otto

Sesto Bruscantini

Walter Legge, producer

EMI, 1954©

A loft of one's own

Cinque .. dieci .. venti .. trenta

I never wished for you to have to know about this, Martin. Now I sup-pose it can't be helped. You know that dreary way that da Ponte opens the first act of Figaro for Mozart, with a plodding low-life pacing off his nuptial garret? Well, the Met were broadcasting the matinée yes-terday and Gérard, heaven help us, caught it all, coming in from JFK. And as we speak, he's scouring Corcoran's listings for a loft in the garment district. Of course if there's anything seedier than a man who'll live above himself, it's one who goes the other way. And just when we spent all summer, persuading him to invest in Capri.

Now I wonder if I shouldn't blame myself in this, because I was the one who wanted to show him the view from Malaparte's. Well, you were there, you remember. All he could talk about was how japon-esque it was, to bring the window so low to the floor, and how with a frame like that, one could make one's own view. I tell you, mon cher, we've never given proper weight to his vulnerabiities. I fear he's taking Beaumarchais literally in that opera, and I must say, Martin, I love him but I ask myself, can he be helped?

Daydreaming of justice

a foot in the right direction






Se vuol ballare,
Signor Contino,
Il chitarrino
Le suonerò.

[the document]