Renee Fleming was singing a second act aria during her well reviewed performance as Manon. A member of the Metropolitan Opera audience yelled "Spectacular!" after the first chorus; there was a brief murmur in the rest of the audience. The same man interjected another "Spectacular!" after the next chorus; the murmur in the audience was intense and unfavorable. Why criticize the man? After all, the stars pause after their arias to receive applause, and thereby break the notion that the audience is overhearing a story rather than present for the performance of a story. The singers also take bows after every act and the intermissions at the Met go on and on, breaking whatever mood might be sustained over a shorter intermission. What the man had done was break the conventions for suspending the performance, that's all, but in theatre, we abide by the conventions, for otherwise we would not know what we were up to.

Opera is a performance in that we have come to hear the singers do their stuff, whatever their material, and to take pleasure from their skill and only secondarily take pleasure from what is signified by the use of their skills, which is the experience and appreciation of the conventionalized sentiments that accompany the plot and the music. Music critics, by and large, accept the hackneyed or contrived plots or the melodramatic emotions so as to concentrate on the spectacle of the singing and the setting, mentioning the acting as an afterthought--this singer also something of an actress. Otherwise, it would not be possible to see these old warhorses--really, chestnuts--over and over again.