The First Five Sentences

Uh...

No opera has music more gorgeous – more brilliantly colored, more lusciously textured, more passionately yearning – than Die tote Stadt.

No opera. Has music! More gorgeous.

So why is it so rarely performed?

Good question, being that it’s the most best opera ever, ever. In fact, if Die tote Stadt was a planet, it would be the only planet in its own solar system--that's how more good it is. Its inhabitants wouldn't need to evolve any further, because they already attained genetic perfection. This makes them herbivores, since predation is futile. Also, they laugh at aliens--especially illegal ones.

Well, the title, "The Dead City," may be a little off-putting.

Personally, the title “Salome” is a little more off-putting. There’s something about necrophilia that doesn’t sit well with me.

Anyway. To each his own.

And Erich Wolfgang Korngold's youthful masterpiece needs two lead singers, a soprano and a tenor, who can sing – and sing and sing...

Don’t all operas require singers who are trained to do this?

...and sing and sing – over high-cholesterol orchestrations that make Wagner sound like Mozart.

Uh...

The soprano also has to be visually plausible as a dancer.

...as opposed to olfactorally plausible.

Fin
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[Edit Empiricus] I almost forgot the "necrophilia" tag.
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