Did David Chase Just Tell Us That Tony Soprano Isn’t Dead?

That’s certainly what Martha P. Nochimson and her editors at Vox think. And so an essay of nearly 5,000 words – many of them, from both Nochimson and Chase himself, erudite and insightful – get boiled down (not least by Vox itself) into a seemingly unambiguous answer to what is actually quite an ambiguous question. (What does it really mean to say, “Tony Soprano lives!”?)

David Chase Responds: By No Means Did I Say That Tony Soprano Is Alive

A publicist for the Sopranos showrunner said in a statement: “To simply quote David as saying, ‘Tony Soprano is not dead,’ is inaccurate. There is a much larger context for that statement and as such, it is not true.” The statement goes on to remind us what Chase has said about the subject many times, and Vox culture editor Todd VanDerWerff offers a defense of the article.

“It’s The Wrong Thing To Ask About ‘The Sopranos'”: Matt Zoller Seitz On The Did-Or-Didn’t-Tony-Die Question

“I won’t take anyone’s interpretation away from anybody – not because I feel that certain interpretations are more provable than others, but because if you’re trying to ‘prove’ a particular theory about the ending of a consciously ambiguous and at times tactically frustrating work of popular art, you’re watching it wrong.”

This Year’s Opera Olympics

“From over 1,000 applications, 40 singers from 17 nations, including the United States, Russia and China, made it through to the main competition, which began on August 25. Following two days of preliminary rounds, 20 singers enter the semi-finals. Ten singers will reach the final round on August 30, which is presented as a Gala Finals Concert with an orchestra conducted by Domingo.”