Jack, Lucia di Lammermoor, based on a novel by Sir Walter Scott, is set in Scotland. How would you prefer that this information be conveyed to the audience? Have the stage director interrupt the action and have a bagpipe and drum band march across the stage from time to time?

Opera is full of stereotypes—of necessity. In Puccini's La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West) we have people singing in Italian, but supposed to be gold miners and cowboys. Many of them are wearing Stetsons and spurs on their boots. And when the lead tenor first appears, he walks in (Stetson, spurs, six-guns on his hips) and sings "Sono Dick Johnson di Sacremento." Got quite a laugh when the opera was first performed in the United States.

And in Puccini's Madama Butterfly, the lead tenor portrays an American naval officer, Lt. Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton, on leave in Japan. He turns out to be a total jerk, spurring this young naive young Japanese woman, who thought he was sincere and not just out for a quick lay, to commit ritual suicide. He led hear to believe they were married, but to him, she was just a pleasant diversion while he was on leave.

Should I, as an American, be offended by the use of these stereotypes?

I can see the dramatic necessity of conveying an essential piece of information to an audience by the simple device of a stereotype. And I don't see that THESE PARTICULAR stereotypes are at all offensive, save to someone who is looking to be offended.

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Re: the Boston setting of "The Masked Ball."

Originally, Verdi's Un Ballo in Maschera was based on a play having to do with the 1792 assassination of Sweden's King Gustave III.

But as per my post above of 14 Sep. 12 – 5:46 p.m., the authorities kept a close watch on the themes of Verdi's works and censored his operas on more than one occasion.

And this was one of those occasions. An opera in which a monarch was assassinated might just give people, especially oppressed people (and Italy was under the Austrian thumb at the time) ideas—and this was unacceptable! So they demanded that Verdi either pull the opera or change it.

If the opera dealt with the assassination of a mere governor in the wilds of far-off America, this was more or less acceptable to the almighty authorities. But a European king? Never!! So, gnashing his teeth, Verdi made the demanded changes

But—he kept the original! And the original with King Gustave III as the assassinated party is the way most opera companies do the opera now. NOT the "Boston version."

A similar thing happened with Verdi's Rigoletto. The story deals with the lecherous young Duke of Mantua (tenor) who is out to seduce anything in skirts. In the course of events, the duke manages to seduce, or rape, the innocent daughter of his hunchbacked jester, Rigoletto. Rigoletto then plots the death of the Duke, but the plot goes horribly wrong.

Originally, the opera was based on the play Le Roi S'Amuse (The King Amuses Himself) by Victor Hugo, and the King in question was Francis I of France. Once again, the Austrian authorities had a hissy-fit. The opera showed a monarch in a bad light, and there was also the assassination plot. They demanded that Verdi either pull the opera or changed it. So once again, spitting sparks, Verdi morphed the French king into the non-existent Duke of Mantua, and one of Verdi's best known operas was allowed to live.

And one of the best known tenor arias in opera. The Duke singing "La Donna é Mobile" (Women are Fickle). Ha! Look who's talking!!

Don Firth