Eugene David<br>...The One-Minute Pundit

Posted 9:12 AM by Gene

Here's a quote for you -- and we ignored this review because it appeared in the NEW, ADAMIZED NEW YORK -- STARRING EFFETE EDELSTEIN:

[An American Tragedy] add[s] one more generic, musically faceless American opera to a growing heap of melancholy disasters.

You may not know dozens -- nay, HUNDREDS of composers have been busily writing operas, just as thousands have been typing books, and hundreds of thousands have made TV shows for the big screen. Our culture mistakes busy for excellence. Can anyone doubt the last decent American composer was Lenny B -- and he died in 1990? (And he wrote an "opera" too, A Quiet Place -- another melancholy disaster.) Remember when NEWS HACKS jumped up and down over those ENDURING MASTERWORKS Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer, written by some throroughly desiccated academic who'd be completely forgotten except he shared a name with our second president? Where are they now? Heck we've already forgotten that fine conductor and tuneless composer Andre Previn's adaptation of A Streetcar Named Desire. Can anyone doubt, on the evidence of grand opry alone, and in every particular, our culture STINKS?