Settling the score
From Mr Colin Hall Dexter Sir: Regarding Michael Tanner's ridiculous review (Arts. 18 May): `Puccini's La Rondine would be a disgrace from a composer of any age. That it should receive a noexpense-spared production at the Royal Opera House. . . is a scandal.'
La Rondine is a minor work of a very great master. It is perfumed dessert wine after the clarets and Burgundies; a sweet soufflé after the serious courses. Sure, the third act doesn't quite deliver, but for Tanner to produce this preposterous judgment, having listened to the exquisitely subtle and, at times, ravishing music of the first two acts of this delicious production, admits only two possible explanations. Either he does not know the piece properly, or he is simply unmusical — a condition, perhaps surprisingly, not unknown among those professing an attachment to opera.
Cohn Hall Dexter
Barneville-Carterct, Manche, France
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