Music: Two Fine Glorias

Conductor Nino Sanzogno explained to his cast at Milan's Piccola Scala that the Italian premiere of Kurt Weill's Mahagonny would have to include some English lyrics: the bitter logic of Bertolt Brecht's libretto demands them. The cast did its best with a baffling array of polyglot lines ("Good morning, caro Signor Jack O'Brien!"), but when it came to singing "Worst of all, Benares is said to have been perished by an earthquake," the chorus sensibly defected. "Guarda qua Benares, è state messa giù da un terremoto," sang the mutineers, leaving American Mezzo Gloria...