It's unusual to see an opera singer, either still active on the stage or retired, who takes the time to write a rebuke (and an impressively humorless, passive-aggressive one at that) to a critic's review.
Rolando Villazon did just that.
To recap:
"Popstar to Operastar makes me sick",
argued Rupert Christiansen in the Daily Telegraph.
"'Popstar to Operastar' is only a television show",
answers Rolando Villazon today in the same paper.
Opera Chic's take? The problem here is that, quite simply, you shouldn't answer your critic in writing, but on the stage, by singing. Villazon can't do that at the present time; he's therefore stranded on the island of bad reality TV. He can rationalize all he wants his presence on that show, but he really shouldn't waste time answering his critics in writing: unless he wants to kickstart a crossover career because he knows that, for medical reasons, he won't be able to sing unamplified anymore -- or for much longer, after his comeback -- that's one thing.
To act all offended because one critic slapped him around a bit, is entirely another.
If Pavarotti could take the critical heat for his crossover initiatives, Villazon -- whose major career lasted all 4 years before it came to a grinding halt, unlike Pavarotti's, because the Big Man moved to the big Three Tenors extravaganzas after three decades of solid work on stage -- should be able to take the heat, also.