Sir Jonathan Miller may be English opera’s greatest curmudgeon, and at 70, he clearly doesn’t feel that he has a lot to lose by criticizing his colleagues in the industry. With only a bit of prodding, Miller reveals that, in his view, Joe Volpe is little better than a Jersey mob boss, critics are “midgets talking into a loudspeaker,” and the well-heeled opera fans who crowd Covent Garden on a weekly basis are “chalk-striped aubergines” who don’t know the first thing about great art. Miller can afford to say these things, apparently, because he believes that he will never again work in opera.