Sturdy specimen

A few weeks ago I was speculating anxiously on the possibility that even the greatest masterpieces, in opera or other art forms, might be exhaustible, or that anyway I might not be able to find anything fresh in them, and therefore might succumb either to a state of mild boredom, or else, like some critics, irritably demand that every production ‘break new ground’, as if it is the job of directors and performers to cater primarily to jaded palates. Any production of an opera which bewilders an audience that knows, at least in moderate outline, what the plot is, who the characters are, is a betrayal of the work: even the most demanding of operatic composers can’t have expected that people would have as many opportunities to see their works as have been rendered possible by technological achievements, whether electronic in the form of CDs, DVDs, and so forth, or aeronautical.