Hi, AK.

I actually have a theory why so many men turn on women of a certain age with such vituperation, whether or not they can spell it.

I think it's an attempt first, at autonomy, second, at a dominance to which they think they're entitled.

Men of a certain age saw themselves, as boys, under the thumbs of their mothers and their teachers (I'm assuming, for Boomer Classics, that their elementary school teachers were predominantly female). They saw grown men also as having power over them -- but also having at the very least economic power over women. So, as the boys became men, they struck out toward this power.

If they didn't get it, then there were fireworks. That "proved" them to be less than their fathers, or just like their fathers, depending on who their fathers were. If they hadn't fathers at home, they had to make it up as they went along, and they took their role models where they found them.

If you've grown up with a father as head of house and provider, and, suddenly, the women around you don't look to you with the same respect for your abilities to provide, your superior education, etc., you're bound to be disappointed. And since you're trying to man up, it can't be your fault; it's the harpies. So you use the verbal abuse techniques some boys learn the way some girls learn to be "mean," and if they don't work, then there are fireworks and the kind of Neandertrolls we read here, who replace logic with emotion.

The -young- men who do it -- personally, I think they've grown up in an environment that simultaneously smothers them (the helicopter generation) while teaching them what special snowflakes they are WHILE letting them know that extraordinary things are expected of them because they're so SPECIAL, but that it's a terrifying, dirty, risky world out there. And the young girls seem -ferocious- and more qualified; there are more in school; and that isn't FAIR. So the boy who fall into this trap turn troll too.

The problem is that the tropes and accusations they use are -so- 1950s. A woman who wishes to be educated, financially independent, charming, attractive can do so if she has the money and the health. If her health is bad, the angry guy doesn't have to perceive that: she's an outlier. If she honestly doesn't care (and some don't), it means that the men's opinion just isn't that important. And that, of course, is unbearable.

This is a theory. It applies to some men and boys, not all. My only data are my observates, and I do perfectly well understand that the plural of anecdote is not data. But given that I don't see in the women around me what these men describe, this is the only theory I have that explains this phenomenon.

At the synagogue where I went to religious school, the cantor had placed second to Richard Tucker: big, Verdi tenor and very big man. I would sit quietly during services, listening to his voice, which led me to opera.

Just found some recordings of Bas Sheva. And -- although the music isn't cantorial, it's middle Eastern -- I like Umm Khaltoum. That sort of music makes good use of a lower range and you could use your technique for cantillation and teching and whipping a chorus into shape.

It's not Jolson, but it would be of service.

She owns Thais, too. Unbelievable in the high notes, with a warm mid-range tessitura, just in her natural range. Fine acting, and a great figure for the Lacrois costumes.

I'll be seeing her in Rusalka this year. Last year, she was worth going to the scalpers for to hear her with Hrovorotsky (he was worth it too -- grrrrrrowwwww) in EUGENE ONEGIN. Her work in RETURN OF THE KING was also wonderful, but then so was the boy soprano.

I think she's singing too much. The Met -will- overuse willing singers, as it does Marcello Giordani.

But at this point, she is as much about performance art as music. Ballet called Fonteyn a prima ballerina assoluta, but I don't think "diva" goes into superlative forms.

Must admit, however, that Massenet sounds slight to me after hearing QUEEN OF SPADES and FAUST, but I can sit through the Russian RING without flinching.

I heard her as Elisabeth in DON CARLO, and what I say is that you DON'T do to your body what Scotto and Callas did. I worry about the strength of the singers who don't have a certain heft.

Dessay worries me, but she has that spectacular acting to fall back on. Heard her with Flores on opening night last year.

I'm sorry.

Don't go medieval on me.

I said it was a theory, predicated on my own observation.

I expected you to make those demands of me.

I think, instead, I'll say QED and add you to the anecdote bank.

Don't even -try- it. If you get away with it at home (and I wonder), I don't think you're that good. Just aggressive.

You have some experience at it already, including teaching.

It seems to me that the process and the accomplishment, both scholarly and musical, would add immensely to your life, get you out, enhance your self-esteem, etc.

Is your Hebrew good enough?

The political situation -- oy.