4 min read
Perfect Pitch
My name is Harold Granderson, and I’ve been the director of the Cleveland Opera for 39 years. I’m sure that doesn’t sound like much, what with the picture of Cleveland as a post-industrial wasteland deprived of fine culture, but I can assure you we don’t harbor talentless hacks. I make sure of that. Admittedly, it’s difficult to attract equally discerning ears. We live in the shadow of the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame, where the off-key caterwauling of drunken pseudo-poets is worshiped. Even the partly admirable ambition of “progressive” rock is shunned here. On the talentless hack front, I recently had to fire one of our tenors. My idiot assistant had hired him while I was on sabbatical. Because of our…