“Everything is in confusion,” sings Fra Melitone. That was also true for the world outside of the opera house during Brexit week. As many have commented, English political life is hurtling “down the rabbit hole,” and it’s perhaps worth noting that “La Forza del Destino,” in 1862, was an unlikely cultural sibling of that quintessentially British masterpiece “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” which Lewis Carroll began writing in that same year and was published soon after, in 1865. Brexit is the maddest of mad tea parties, and, if, somewhere, the Cheshire Cat is grinning at the confusion, we are unlikely to enjoy the humor anytime soon. – The New Yorker