Standing ovation for Carnival Messiah

THE EDITOR: I saw Carnival Messiah on Wednesday, 30. I was accompanied by three friends, each of us paying $200 for our seats. This is the highest price I have ever paid to attend any event in this country. Suffice it to say my friends and I agreed it was worth every penny.

I take issue with Terry Joseph’s critique that the show lacked a story line. The story is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, ever told. Terry also suggested that “High Mass” would have been a wise addition to the music and that Eddie Cumberbatch would have been a better choice for the solo. These are personal opinions which, to my mind, one can take or leave. They do not affect the intrinsic value of what we enjoyed. Peter Minshall’s review is something else entirely. It seems he went out of his way to be vicious, to show petty jealousy and to gratuitously insult the producer, Geraldine Connor; one of his own faithful crew, Allyson Brown and Carol La Chappelle.

What was Allyson’s crime? Is it that she dared to perform in a production that he Peter, was not part of? So she did things that (he claims) she learned at Chaguaramas! Big deal! I am sure that many of the creations that Peter has produced have had their genesis in some past exposure to others’ works. No, Peter, you have done yourself a great disservice with that review. The headline “Raw sewage” can better be used to describe your review rather than Carnival Messiah. The standing ovation it received the night I attended was thoroughly deserved.

MERVYN E TELFER
St James