11/18/2003 » Music

The Met at Lincoln Center is a very opulent hall: six stories high inside, serious sets with hydraulics, red velvet walls, snowflake chandeliers with arms sticking out like sputnik; multiple bars serving wine and elegant food. When the house lights went up, they really went up, fifty feet of retracting snowflakes.

Most of the audience was over 50 years old. I found ‘Die Frau Ohne Schatten,’ the German opera, to be ponderous and low-stimulation. The experience of going to the opera was the key draw.