One opera, two views

1 Here's the first paragraph from one review;

Well, the weather was better than expected. Sunshine, no rain, with only a gathering evening chill. As for Glyndebourne's opening production of the season: worse, much worse. Just the thought of Danielle de Niese, that magnetic Cleopatra from Giulio Cesare, singing and swaying, was enough for every ticket for the performances of Monteverdi's last opera to be snapped up. But her Poppea is no Cleopatra; she's not fun, not sexy, no creature of infinite variety. Nor is Robert Carsen's production.

2 No doubt, you can guess where that review is leading to. Yes, you're right. Now, read the first paragraph from a different review:

'Without doubt, the sexiest piece ever written,' is how director Robert Carsen described L'Incoronazione di Poppea in a recent interview. His new staging of Monteverdi's masterpiece, however, though at times explicit, could hardly be considered erotica. It is dark, detached stuff, sometimes disturbing, and often confused.

3 People, including reviewers, see different things; sometimes, they see the same things but give different weights to those different things, or aspects. ('Yes, yes, I too noticed that but I dont' think it matters much or, at any rate, that it matters as much as you think it does.') I wonder what this correspondent will see, will emphasise. The first paragraph, remember, sets the direction. Read the first paragraph and receive the thrust of the reviewer's estimation. Look again at that wicked concluding sentence in the first example.

4 And the second? The use of the opening quotation to direct the attention, in this case, perhaps, to heighten the expectation, is a common device. The issue of the sexiness of the piece having been established, the view will either be endorsed or contradicted. If the quotation has heightened the expectation of all those who saw Niese as Cleopatra or who read about her, then the contradiction will be all the more disappointing. And there is the nice distinction, one which readers can be assumed to make, between the explicit and the erotic.

5 So what will be this correspondent's first paragraph. Watch this space.