Opera is elitist trash (allegedly)

If you're referring (as I imagine you to be doing) to the recent "HARDTalk" edition on BBC4 in which Sarah Montague quite spectacularly makes a fool of herself (and does little credit to her profession) in front of Thomas Hampson and an audience of far more than 200 spread across quite a few countries (as a number of respondents have clarified), I don't recall the word "trash" being used, though in so saying I seek to proffer no excuse for what was said by the interviewer, all of which was based on a particularly fatuous brief; I have no idea why that brief was handed to her in preference to a journalist with more knowledge of the subject (of which there are surely quite a few). If you're referring to something else, however, I'll shut up!

OK; I'd assumed as much; I have to say, however, that the "support for her position" of which you write is something of which I've unsurprisingly witnessed scant evidence, whereas complaints and brickbats understandably abound in more than one such "elsewhere"...

The ballet, Jason?

BBC - Prom 4: Les Siècles – The Rite of Spring

How about one hundred years of visionary ballet in November then, Jason, from Stravinsky’s twentieth-century masterpiece to innovative choreography by Wayne McGregor and David Dawson?

The Royal Opera House - The Royal Ballet - Mixed Programme - Chroma / New Dawson / The Rite of Spring

Of course, the audience for ballet and opera is very different. At the Royal Opera House, for example, ballet enthusiasts are generally younger, more female and better looking than the opera buffs! But is ballet elitish trash, too? Well, Friedrich Nietzsche once argued that he could not believe in a god who did not know how to dance. Even if God cannot dance, I hope that he has a good sense of humour, if only for Friedrich's sake!

Dance, having played a central role in pagan religious rites, was largely ignored during the Middle Ages, apart from rustic entertainment. From Renaissance Italy, however, the baletto was exported in the time of Catherine de' Medici to the French court, where, under Louis XIV, it became a major art form.

The modern theory and practice of ballet were largely developed in mid-eighteenth century Paris. Russia first imported French and Italian ballet under Peter the Great, but in the nineteenth century moved rapidly from imitation to creative excellence. After the Revolutions of 1917, the Ballets Russes stayed abroad, whilst the Soviet Bolshoi and Kirov Ballets combined stunning technical mastery with rigid artistic conservatism. Are you ready to dance, Jason?