It was just supposed to be an opera review, but in some people’s eyes it has left the Canadian Opera Company looking mercilessly petty and the National Post looking worse. On May 3, Arthur Kaptainis, the well-known critic for the Montreal Gazette and the Post, filed a piece on the COC’s Maometto II, an opera by Rossini. When it ran, Jennifer Pugsley, a press representative for the COC, emailed Dustin Parkes, executive producer of arts and culture at the National Post, officially to correct two errors,
but really to complain about Kaptainis.