Thursday (2/24) on her Washington Post blog Classical Beat, Anne Midgette writes, “After I saw ‘Anna Nicole,’ the opera, I posted links on this blog to a lot of reviews, both positive and negative. I got some nice comments about this being somehow brave or unusual. While that’s flattering, I submit that such a comparison is not ‘brave,’ but essential. … I don’t think criticism should pretend any longer, if it ever did, that the critic represents the voice of truth. … I didn’t like ‘Anna Nicole’ very much (though I really hoped I would). Jessica Duchen, in The Independent, liked it a lot, and on her blog she elaborated still more reasons why she liked it. I found Jessica’s opinions to be among the most interesting writing about the piece, and I told her so when we went out for a drink a couple of days later. … The point of criticism is to foster discussion, appreciation, thought—not to seize on a couple of points and use them to further one’s own predetermined agenda. Jessica’s post didn’t make me change my mind about ‘Anna Nicole,’ but it gave me a real understanding of what the piece had done for her and why she liked it.”
Posted February 25, 2011
