Personally, I have never been able to convince myself that the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts are cultural in any deep sense of the word. The broadcasting of ludicrous Nineteenth Century melodrama, accompanied by music which is emotionally powerful but frequently of staggering vulgarity, and projected by means of acting which often falls below the level of a high school literary society's play, is cultural only on a very special level. I am devoted to opera and never miss a performance if I can help it, but if I were going to broadcast something that was cultural, I would certainly not choose Lucia, La Traviata or Tosca.
Yours sincerely,
Robertson Davies
(I was a resident at Massey College during my Ph.D., where Davies was the founding master. [Source, via])
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