Critical of Critic

Nobody expects a music critic to be creative, or constructive, or even objective. In his review of San Diego Opera’s “Marriage of Figaro” (“Conventional Marriage,” Feb. 10), Martin Bernheimer meets or exceeds those expectations but still provides some informative comments about the production.

On the other hand, nobody needs his snobbish, snippy observations about the behavior of the audience: “first-nighters were so busy reading the infernal supertitles that they tended to ignore the sublime music.” I followed both, but it’s none of Bernheimer’s business if I had fallen asleep. Those “infernal supertitles” are almost universally employed in opera. The Paris Opera had supertitles in both French and English in an opera last spring.

Then Mr. Bernheimer intones: “ . . . the Count’s dramatic, potentially tragic plea for forgiveness . . . emerged as something of a laff riot.” In that scene, there was an abrupt change of mood which produced a comic effect, and the audience laughed. If that spoiled Mr. Bernheimer’s gloomy mood, he should blame the director’s timing, not the reaction of the audience.

H.L. YOUNG, San Diego