Vittorio Grigolo and Kristine Opolais in a scene from 'La
Bohème.' Metropolitan Opera/Associated Press  Classical music's
No. 1 news story is the plight of the Metropolitan Opera, whose
general manager, Peter Gelb, is facing the possibility of a
crippling strike. For that reason, what he said in a recent
interview deserves to be quoted at length: "Grand opera is in
itself a kind of a dinosaur of an art form…. The question is not
whether I think I'm doing a good job or not in trying to keep
the [Metropolitan Opera] alive. It's whether I'm doing a good
job or not in the face of a cultural and social rejection of
opera as an art form."  Is that buck-passing defeatism, or a
fair appraisal of the state of American opera?  Consider what
Mr. Gelb said in a later interview, this one with the BBC. Asked
about the long-term effects of the Met's much-ballyhooed movie-
house simulcasts on audience development, he replied that "75%
of [the audience members] are over 65, and 30% of them are over
75…. How can we possibly hop