PETER AND THE WOLVES


© Sam H. Shirakawa 


A Skandal at the Metropolitan Opera?  Du lieber Gott! 


Within hours of muzzling Opera News over publishing reviews of future Met performances a few days ago, General Manager Peter Gelb had a change of tune and let the old dog bark again. He clearly had been singed by the firestorm of objections to the silencing, which had followed from a pair of unflattering articles in the company’s house organ. 

Peter Gelb 
(Photo: Keith Bedford/Reuters)

Peetaah! Ya shudda stuck to your guns and gone into scorched-earth mode!  


>> Unshackle the rag from the Met Guild, fire those disloyal editorial dastards, replace them with lubricious hacks who report directly to you and mandate nothing but fawning pulp. 
>> Speaking of pulp, you'll save a mega-bundle by ditching the Met's performance booklets and distributing at every show the newly revamped Opera News:  Reduce its dimensions by 60 percent, trash that expensive glossy paper, have it printed on recycled toilet tissue and tack a $5 "programme" charge on each ticket. 


And while you're at it, order the new fully subservient Opera News management to ramp up revenues, by monetizing those long-since hushed up reports of alcoholism and prescription drug abuse in the opera world with full-page advertisements from distilleries and the pharma industry. The cross-marketing is perfectamundo: 


Diva: 
I can only hit high Cs when I sing. 
But you can hit Infinity at my next performance! 
G’Lala! 
Two tabs with a snifter of LaTiDoe Moonshine and you too will be Sempre Libra!
(Side effects may include hoarseness and hearing loss) 


With the peta-gazillions the Met would stand to earn from such ads, you can finally make Opera News into so mind-numbing a profit center, that it won’t matter if the new Ring is actually terminal waste or if that Tosca is just terminal.