Then again, it’s the Met. I love opera, but when has opera ever been in touch with reality? One takes place in the desert outside of New Orleans. Another stages a firing squad several floors up so the heroine can throw herself off the parapet to her death. And America has an opera that could have been written by PDQ Bach playing out in Washington.

When a bucket of KFC chicken becomes the symbol of resistance to Democratic Congressmen, can we be surprised that the Met harkens back to an era when opera was the equivalent of a Taylor Swift concert?