We're talking big big big roar - from the orchestra, from the chorus, from the soloists -- and from the audience. It was the fierce roar of artists re-establishing their territory, of restoring their rights to live performances, of resuscitating their community's heartbeat that may have faded to a faint but never ever actually stopped.
Truth be told - our arms, hands, and lungs were not in shape yet to give the ovations that we owed to the Met Opera for its stupendous artistry. Following last night's incredible free performance of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony in Damrosch Park, Haglund could barely manage ten minutes of sustained clapping without a rest.
Having failed to secure a reserved seat through the ticket lottery, Haglund made sure to arrive at Lincoln Center 1-1/4 hours early in order to get in the front of the stand-by line for one of the thousand general admission seats.
Ha! Here's what greeted him:
Not bad, you say? At 6:45 pm this double line at W. 62nd St. turned the corner at 9th Ave and stretched all the way back to W. 65th St.
Not being a big fan of lines, Haglund hung out on W. 62nd St. and eventually joined the throngs who watched and listened from the sidewalk. It turned out to be a good decision - kind of like sitting in the Side Orchestra at the Met but with no seat. The sidewalk crowd swelled to five deep and spilled out over the curb into the street -- a sundry spectacle of different ages, ethnicities, and incomes. A frail elderly man in a wheelchair was less concerned about one of his feet slipping off the footrest than about keeping up with reading the musical score from his iPhone. New York's sidewalks tell important stories about who we are.
The performance was as magnificent as one expects Mahler to be. Powerful, penetrating, and impervious to the additional percussion from the whirling blades of police helicopters that occasionally blew over Damrosch Park. It was just the restorative 90 minutes that we needed. And it repeats tonight -- provided that the rain holds off.
Agreed - it was a rousing performance. However, I would note that the line turned onto Columbus Avenue, not 9th Avenue (which starts a few blocks south) - any denizen of Lincoln Center should know that! Also, I'm not sure those were police helicopters - the annoying ones that hover over Central Park are usually tourist runs that begin in New Jersey and that I doubt Lincoln Center would have had any control over, unless someone knows otherwise. Interestingly, there were a fair number of empty seats, so there probably would have been enough room for everyone.
Posted by: Solor | September 05, 2021 at 11:28 PM
Lol, too many extra syllables. Next you're gonna tell me that 10th is really Am-ster-dam at 59th, and 6th is really Avenue of the Pretentious, oops I mean, Americas.
Terrific performance and grateful crowd again last night. I saw the empty seats and wondered why the seating wasn't managed more efficiently. Since the 1000 seats in the back half of Damrosch Park were unreserved, LC could have started seating people in the standby line much earlier and limited them to those seats.
Hopefully the LC venues will get the screening logistics ironed out in the next couple of weeks. They could have several "express" lines for people with the Excelsior Pass or Clear Pass and other lines for the cardboard crowd. And get all the screening (including the requisite sniff from the police dog) done out on the plaza away from the front doors so there's no clog.
Posted by: Haglund | September 06, 2021 at 07:32 AM