ROANOKE TIMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, September 29, 1995                   TAG: 9509290037
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO   
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium


DEADLINE NEARS FOR REGISTERING TO VOTE

A TIMELY reminder that Oct. 10 is approaching. What's so important about that date? It's the deadline to register to vote in November.

Local, state and national elections are very important. If you're not interested enough to vote, you have no right to complain about the government.

If you've moved since you last voted, you may be in a new precinct, so make sure your name has been moved to the record book where you're to vote this year.

Turn to the blue pages in your Bell Atlantic phone book to find the number for voter registration and make sure you're registered by Oct. 10. If you plan to be out of town, the registrar's office will tell you how to vote by mail. If you need transportation, this can be arranged.

This will be my first time to vote. So no matter how old, be sure you vote!

MARY K. GREER

SALEM

Opera showed theatrical sloppiness

OPERA lovers, beware! There's good news and bad news about Opera Roanoke's current production of ``Madame Butterfly.'' The good news is a very respectable orchestra and generally fine voices. The bad news is all the rest. Stripping grand opera of all its elaborate trappings can be interesting if done well and if the fundamental elements of good theater are left intact. Unfortunately, this production has many basic problems. Let me elaborate on just a few.

A 40ish-looking diva doesn't a youthful 15-year-old geisha make. Soprano Pamela Myers looked mature and wordlly enough to see right through bad guy Pinkerton. Likewise, a 6-year-old girl doesn't a 3-year-old boy make. Was there trouble casting ``Trouble''?

Pantomiming hand props can be challenging to actors and interesting to watch. In this production, however, it was downright distracting. Imaginary glasses were handed to actors and forgotten. Imaginary objects were pulled out of a chest and forgotten. Butterfly pantomimes stabbing herself with an imaginary object which, given the way she was miming it, looked more like a duck in flight than a lethal weapon.

The costumes were hideous, particularly those worn by the rather mature and hefty female chorus. A strapless dress on most women over age 40 isn't a pretty sight. And what about the ``dashing'' Pinkerton? Was he in drag or what? And what about his second wife? Was this insipidly gowned creature on her way to the high school prom? I think not. I hope the ``designer'' was simply having a bad day. But where was the director?

I could go on. Enough, already Craig Fields! Don't insult your audiences with any more theatrical sloppiness. If you want to mount an opera in a nontraditional fashion, at least pay attention to the fundamentals. Please!

JULIE EARTHMAN

BLACKSBURG

Squatters' rights on kids?

REGARDING your Sept. 20 editorial, ``Slapping the schools with a suit'':

At the end of your editoral, you wrote, "They shouldn't in any case regard children as property." Was the use of the word ``property'' on purpose? Not once in my 41-plus years have I ever heard anyone use that word in describing their children. But since you've chosen the word, I'll use it.

I raise my children, feed them, buy their clothes, pay for their schooling, health, etc. Shouldn't I at least have squatters' rights?

ROGER SMITH

ROANOKE

Prison will teach Ayton nothing

I DON'T know much about law, but in some cases, right and wrong appear very clear to me. Simone Ann Ayton, who is retarded and drowned her infant son, shouldn't go to prison. There must be some way our judicial system can find a way to sterilize this woman so the incident cannot be repeated. She's only a threat to her own unborn children, and no one else.

Prison will teach her nothing, and merely strain an overstrained system. Sterilization seems to me the only sane solution.

KATIE LETCHER LYLE

LEXINGTON


Memo: ***CORRECTION***

by CNB