Readers Take Two Views of One Critic, Pro and Con

Excuuuuuuse us for watching and enjoying Pavarotti on PBS (“ ‘World’-Weary View of Pavarotti,” Calendar, Dec. 6). We think Martin Bernheimer needs to reconcile his apparent elitist attitude and lust for self-proclaimed operatic purity and its attendant exclusivity for the immense benefit and enjoyment of the “masses,” i.e., many folks like us. If he really cares about opera and its appreciation, he should applaud the interface of mediums and audiences offered by Pavarotti himself and his “handlers” and producers.

We all have a great deal to learn and enjoy from this process and Bernheimer should give pause prior to dispensing harsh and misplaced criticism of this important adjunct to “pure” opera, for there are many yet to be exposed and enthralled. Pavarotti happens to be the perfect vehicle.

DAVE AND MARCIA STROMQUIST

Long Beach

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In a world in which the majority has elected to abandon all pretense of more permanent values of taste, grace, gentility, subtlety and reverence for the truly worthy, where relativism is deemed the convenient final arbitrator of excellence, I am thankful there is still Martin Bernheimer to remind the reader that once there was such a Camelot, and that those who reside there are not seduced by the facsimile so constantly and brazenly proffered before the multitudes. I despair . . . but his wit and eloquence make it bearable.

ELAINE LIVESEY-FASSEL

Los Angeles