resulted in riots, with death and destruction ensuing?
The Rite Of Spring was performed in Paris in 1913,” composer Jim Steinman recounts, “it caused one of the major riots in history. The entire audience tore the Paris Opera House apart and it had to be rebuilt. Police were called in, three people were killed, it was amazing.” (“The Julia Child of Rock ‘n Roll,” Sound Magazine, June 1978.) Well, perhaps not. And perhaps our lurid imaginings were enhanced by our family histories—both of us having lost forebears to those of our hosts just sixty years earlier. Yet even if our audience maintained its civility, might they not choose, in all civility, to have us imprisoned? At a certain point, realizing our imposture, disappointed and outraged, they would call the police; what the Austrian justice system might have to say about impersonating the WTO, even for the sake of honesty, was anyone’s guess.
