'Thais' again

The people who lambasted Robert: Finn for his overly generous review' of the Met's disaster called "Thais" ought to have read the treatment: the poor girl received when the:

production opened in New York.

Finn is on a par with any music critic on any major daily, weekly or monthly publication in the United States.

However, I must question his Sunday column regarding an opera house in Cleveland. Some years ago, and I believe Finn was about, I assisted in a promotion for the Lake Erie Opera Theater which had as its centerpiece a showing of the lovely film of "Der Rosenkavalier" put together by

Herbert Van Karajan, and which raised $13,000.

Finn himself must remember the two irate dowagers who left in the opera's first act, mumbling about the homosexual overtones of the fove scene between the marschallin and Octavian, the latter a pants role always sung by a female.

Are we sure we're ready for an opera house?

Rice Hershey Cleveland