FEEDBACK

Many of the avant-garde opera directors are sticking a thumb in my eye. A boo is a mild response. They should think themselves lucky.

One example of an insensitive director: Julie Taymor for “Flying Dutchman.” She gave the Dutchman a Halloween costume and a portable canoe. The Steersman’s song was accompanied by hops, skips and jumps because the director has a tin ear for the drowsiness of the music.

I have seen operas destroyed to build a reputation for a director whose natural home is in the visual arts or to bring in money from people who don’t like opera but will go if there is something going on visually. I have built up a huge level of anger about this. Sometimes I have taken my granddaughter and felt foolish and betrayed for spending $600 on two Founder’s Circle seats.

Above all, I loathe people who mess with Donizetti -- a dear man who was hurt in his lifetime and must not be hurt after his death by those who would spoil or cut short his music.

Moira Clegg

Los Angeles

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Mark Swed’s lack of historical perspective leads him to dismiss the booing of mediocrity as a “mind-closing activity” expressing “rigidity in the face of invention” [“Cry of the boobirds,” April 26].

The dominant cultural forces tend toward mediocrity, and Swed’s unwitting championship of this mediocrity -- by decrying the booers who are trying to salvage some of the greatness of our classics -- is symptomatic of a cultural degeneracy whose historical basis completely eludes him.

Three cheers for the booers! They, at least, cherish what was immortal in the great classics -- and have the integrity to protest against the puny minds who would maim these classics with their contrived gimmicks and outlandish novelties.

Roger Carasso

Los Angeles