Mr. PAPADEMETRIOU: You know, a lot of people, and therefore their political leaders, are at their witsend as to how to basically try to bottle - to put that genie back into the bottle.
Transocean lawyer Brad Brian said that last week's settlement was not an admission of gross negligence and that last-minute changes to the well design by BP had the rig's crew "at wits' end" before the disaster.
He rattles off the quack's sales patter with buffo aplomb, whistles humorously through his teeth during his comic impersonation of an elderly senator at the wedding banquet, and his duel of wits with Ms. Netrebko at the end of Act II demonstrates the cavernous distance between their vocal styles.