The Tragedy of Sir Rudolf Bing

I was deeply shocked by your most insensitive article about the situation in which Sir Rudolf Bing finds himself at the present (“An Operatic Decline,” July 31, by Elizabeth Mehren). Why pry into the tragedy of an old man in the last stages of Alzheimer’s disease? With an almost sadistic insistence, every humiliating detail is forced on us.

Why not let us keep the memory of this extraordinary man--so brilliant, witty and able to impose on the Met the most interesting years--and a man who cared with angelic patience for his first wife, Nina, during her very long illness?

JOANNA GZANDAN

Pacific Palisades