Why I didn't blog LUCIA: I was away. Not just on the road, but in the Matrix.

Now, were you at the opening TRISTAN? If so, feel free to comment, but from my vantage point (not having been there or heard it), I'm going to side with the apparent majority who think the booing of John MacMaster was bang out of line.

The dissenters say he was so goshawful that artistic justice demanded booing, just like they do at La Scala and Palermo. The majority says he wasn't that goshawful: he was singing his first Tristan at the Met, on short notice, with no rehearsal.

I would add that for better or worse -- mostly for better -- the Met is not La Scala or Palermo, and anyway, Wagner is not Italian opera, with its "school" conventions that can be easily applied by an audience full of gifted-amateur critics.

Mr. MacMaster, take heart. You saved the show, and most Met-goers are grateful to you for it.