‘Rigoletto’s’ Audience

Martin Bernheimer’s review of “Rigoletto” (“The Domingos Do ‘Rigoletto,’ ” March 1) can be faulted for many things, but the most serious of them is misdirection of his audience.

It is the prime obligation of a critic in a mass circulation newspaper to help readers determine if a given thing is worth experiencing. In that process, the reviewer can also surely educate us, amuse us, get us to thinking and so on.

Bernheimer seems never to sense the difference between how a piece is evaluated for experts and how it is evaluated for the rest of us. And his putdown of the supertitles is almost insulting to those of us who are not experts--supertitles have immensely enhanced the ability of most opera-goers to really enjoy what they see.

JOHN M. ALLSWANG

Los Angeles