The Martyre de Saint Sebastien, a play by Gabriele D'Annunzio with music by Claude Debussy, was, according to its original producer, "bad." Says the program notes of the SF Symphony. The run which concluded last Sunday of a staged concert version with additional video projections, demonstrated that its music was exquisite, but yeah, the surrounding stuff could be a drag.

We're on record stating that we don't need video enhancements, that we find it distracting and superfluous. Debussy's music holds its own perfectly fine, so why mess with it. Sure, it was originally written as a ballet so the shots of the dancer could make sense to capture the theatricality, but as a rule of thumb we got from Dan Savage, no man not named Ashton Kutcher should appear on screen in tighty wighties. Or was it diapers? The full play could last five hours, but the SF Symphony version clocked in at seventy minutes: we can hold our attention for that long without the need to see projection of white doves at the mention of His Light.