Bel Canto

by Ann Patchett

There were others there that night who had not heard her name, who would have said, if asked, that opera was a collection of nonsensical cat screechings, that they would much rather pass three hours in a dentist’s chair. These were the ones who wept openly now, the ones who had been so mistaken.

“Art is not sin. It’s not always good. But it is not a sin.”