Operatic potential

The unfortunate re-emergence of assasination (Ahmed Shah Massoud, Anna Politkovskaya, Pierre Gemayel), and of poisoning in particular (Yushchenko, Litvinenko), as a political instrument may well have an unintended side-effect: May I be the first to predict that we will soon see and hear a number of new music theatre works in which poisoning returns to its proper place in the arsenal of operatic action.