Sir, – In response to the article by Finn McRedmond, (“Timothée Chalamet is right: no one cares about opera or ballet,” Opinion, March 12th), it would be cheap of me to assume that such comments have arisen out of ignorance alone. Especially in the mainstream press. While people are entitled to their own opinions, they are not entitled to their own facts.
Ballet, opera and classical music have been around for almost half a millenium and continue to be enjoyed around the world to this day, including within popular art, where they are sampled and reused to within an inch of needing life support.
So, let’s vaccinate ourselves against any such philistine disease, which is infecting much of the western world right now. All art should be celebrated.
For every art form alive today, there is an audience that it touches and connects with. Populist forms of entertainment are not comparable, as they are fashions, which, like the overly enthusiastic mayfly, peak, then die quickly. Committed art forms do not. Instead they grow and permeate and give life to life itself.
READ MORE
If lockdown taught us one thing, it is that life without the arts, is life in monochrome. – Yours, etc,
MORGAN MCMONAGLE,
Woodstown,
Co Waterford.
Sir, – According to Finn McRedmond, Timothée Chalamet is right: most of us don’t care about opera or ballet any more. Chalamet and McRedmond are entitled to their opinions but who is “us” exactly?
I know it doesn’t include me and the many, many thousands who attend live performances of opera every year in Ireland. I’ve cared about opera, ballet, classical music and theatre ever since I was a child and I’m not alone. – Yours, etc,
PATRICK O’BYRNE,
Phibsborough,
Dublin 7.
