Saturday night found me and my good friend LB heading downtown to a beautiful theatre for a much anticipated concert. Performing were The 5 Browns, five 20-something siblings who are all piano virtuosos. I had never heard of them, but the concert was advertised on NPR and after visiting their website, decided they were a must-hear. If it's not amazing enough to ponder five phenoms playing everything from Rachmaninoff to Gershwin, imagine hearing them play together. At.The.Same.Time. There were two 9-foot grand pianos facing one another at the front of the stage and three more baby grands right behind them, fanned out, facing the audience. They played several pieces all together (yes...all 5 of them), then other solos, duets, and our favorite of the evening...Clair de Lune, played by the three sisters on one piano. It was like listening to a dance - they moved with such grace, swaying in concert, arms gently gliding between one another, playing as one, with sounds that left us breathless.
We were not disappointed. Not by the music, anyway...
For reasons completely unrelated to The 5 Browns, though, our special evening was astonishingly interupted by a extraordinarily rude patron who, along with her husband and four children, marched in after the concert had begun and informed us (and the couple sitting next to us) that we were in their seats and we would have to move forthwith. (Editorial comment: while the architecture at the Pabst was incredible, the atmosphere was less decorous than, say, the symphony. If you arrive late to the symphony, you are out of luck until intermission.) After we were ushered to our seats (which was a touch confusing in itself, requiring several attempts to determine where we were supposed to be), we felt like President Lincoln, sitting in our box, and joked that we hoped we fared better than him in the end. After the second number, however, in walked John Wilkes Booth and family, threatening to kill the evening altogether. She insisted we move, we informed her we had been told to sit where we were by ushers. She insisted we extract our tickets for evaluation, and we told her that had already been checked. She insisted they be checked again, and mercifully, someone several rows ahead of us turned around and shouted, "QUIET!", at which point she, after reminding us again that there were six of them and four of us and six seats in our row and four empty seats behind us and it was our responsibility to move, said, "Fine. We'll move during intermission."
Being rather non-confrontational by nature, I was dreading intermission. Much of the first half of the concert was dedicated to the formation of a sensible and prudent argument through which I wanted to inform this woman in a polite and civil way what a JERK she was being. As we talked about it later, my friend LB was also composing comebacks in her head and had we been pushed, we would have been ready.
Fortunately, we were able to avoid a duel. As the first half wound to a close, an usher started to pass by in front of our box. Seizing the moment, I leaned forward in my seat and quietly said, "This woman is convinced we are in her seats and no amount of explanation will change that. Would you please move us to another section?" "Of course," replied the usher, "..we have several sections with open seats." Even as we were gathering our things and leaving, our antagonist continued her diatribe, arguing her case even though it no longer mattered. We could hear her going ON and ON as we were shown to our new (and might I say, much improved) seats. We had a better view of the stage, and when we looked up, right there in full view was the biggest and most beautiful chandelier I had ever seen. We could see statues of Beethoven and Wagner previously unseen. There were statues at the ceiling above the stage of angels playing harps and singing praises. And even as were being seated, John Wilkes Booth was still chewing out the usher, complaining that we now had better seats than her.
Simply astonishing.
Much more relaxed, and in awe of what we could now see, we thoroughly enjoyed the remainder of the concert, enraptured by the sounds of Steinways filling the air. We left the theater walking on air, scratching our heads over the first half, reliving the magic of the second half, and ever so thankful for the opportunity to experience such an astonishing performance.
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