Music, Movie and Movement

 Today we met Daniel (Dan) Egan, who is to be our guide through the medium of Opera.  He is the Academic Coordinator for Explore New York/Road Scholar.  He also performs and it shows in his presentations.  He is engaging, funny, interesting and interested.  Today he introduced us  to our week of opera (what is opera) including what it takes both physically and via training to sing operatically.  Also presenting was Mary Jo Heath who discussed New Media and the Met.  Many in the group have only seen opera at HD theaters.  Mary Jo explained how the Met moved from in house only presentation to HD, online, and other out reaches to increase audience "attendance".  She went through the Met website.  

After lunch we braved the subway for a ride up to Lincoln Center  for the Performing Arts.  It's a 16.3-acre complex that is home to 11 resident arts organizations. The Met Opera House was not available for a tour.  We were guided through the Philharmonic and the NYC Ballet.  At the ballet we quietly watched a ballerina practice for The Nutcracker.  

Following the tour, we took the subway back downtown for dinner at the Joyce Public House.  We are beginning to become acquainted with others in the group.  This evening we sat with Niel and Susanna from Houston.  They are Danes who have lived in Houston for years and years.  He was an engineer with big oil.  

The Big Apple and Big Music

 We are in NYC for 6 days with the Road Scholar tour program.  We drove down this morning, arrived at 3:40. Perfect timing to meet the 4pm registration time.  But NOOOOO.  Unlike the program said, there was no valet parking.  The door man gave instructions on where to park.  But due to one way streets, no right turns, police blocks, it took us one hour to go about 100 feet to the garage.  Very frustrating and head ache inducing.  We were late but it didn't seem to matter as introductions came after we arrived.  Kevin, our guide for the week, gave a rundown of the program, escorted us to dinner in the hotel and after took us on a walk-about.  He is 2nd generation New Yorker, obviously loves and knows the city.  He took us to Herald Square, through Macy's, over to Penn Station and Moynihan Train station.  

La Boheme

 Our morning was spent learning from Marcia Sells about the Met's diversity initiatives.  She delved into the vastness of the Met's departments.  The Met employs over 3000 people.  Wow!  I learned about the paid intern program, too. After our break, Will Berger, who is all things made public at the Met, walked us through the plot of La Boheme, our evening performance.  He made points about the development of the score and its marriage to the lyric/voice of the story.  This afternoon Pamela Jones, soprano, sang various arias for us focusing on how a singer will 'act' with voice, movement and expression to portray emotion.

This evening we got to the crux of the trip.  After dinner at a local Turkish restaurant, we walked in the rain to Lincoln Center.  Our seats were in the nose bleed section, balcony D.  At this distance one needs opera glasses to see facial expressions and sometimes even know who is singing.  But the sound was not diminished in the least.  We got the best view of the chandelier lifting.  Is it a surprise that the voices were beyond comparison.  No.  Mimi especially soared.  Wayne and I both felt the ending was not climatic.  But, Puccini obviously wanted that sombre feeling to remain in the memory.  

Review, Retain, Relax

 Dan led us through a discussion and critique of La Boheme.  It's insightful to hear others in the group reflect upon their experience.  We were all more or less in concert with the overall impact and all loved the 2nd act staging in the city center (larger super numero cast, horse, parade, etc)  Having these discussions really help me retain the plot, staging, place of performance.  

Dan later interviewed Eve Gigliotti, a Plan member of the Met, asking her to describe her path from student to performer.  We then had a group photo and were sent out on our own for the remainder of the day.