The Arts in New York City

For this week’s art event I attended the Filarmonica Della Scala at Carnegie Hall on Saturday, October 13. The Filharmonica Della Scala is the resident orchestra of Milan’s celebrated opera house, an orchestra established 25 years ago this year, and as a celebration took part in a North American tour, the first time it has ever done so. I happened to receive these tickets from a friend at the UN who had heard about my search for a cultural event. I accepted these tickets hesitantly; I had never before been to an orchestra performance and was not too sure if I would like it. But lately I have been in the mood to try out new things, so I took the tickets, dressed up in suit and tie and made my way for the historic Carnegie Hall. From the moment I walked up to Carnegie Hall I knew that I was presence of high class people, dressed very elegantly and pre-gaming the upcoming performance. I made my way inside the Stern auditorium and I was seated in the orchestra seats next to the ambassador to Portugal. The program for the night consisted three works by Wagner: Lohengrin, Prelude Act 3; the operas Die Wesendonk Lieder and Die Walkure, Act One: Scene 3. The program also featured two works by the Italian, Respighi which were the Fountains of Rome and the Pines of Rome. The conductor for the orchestra was Riccardo Chailly and the tenor was Ben Heppner. The first act, which consisted of works by Wagner, displayed a variety of the instruments sounding out high emotion as well as calm tunes. The two operas were sung in German and, without the help of Anna-Maja, I was unable to understand anything. Fortunately, I was able to pick up some of what was going on just by the action of the music. The second act displayed the sounds of Italy’s Respighi. The first piece, Fountains of Rome, was a beautiful piece that represented a major characteristic of Rome: its fountains. If one listened closely, it was if you could actually hear the tinkling of the water. The Pines of Rome was also about one of Rome’s other well-known characteristic of pine trees. In the piece, the music shows the transition from day into night with the representation of clock tower bells, the sound of tree-inhabiting birds and the change in the tempo of the music. For an encore the Orchestra played Rossini’s William Tell Overture and ended the night with a tribute to jazz, a really catchy fusion of sounds picked up during the ages. Overall, this was a very enlightening and enjoyable experience and I wouldn’t be surprised if I were to attend other types of these events.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 16th, 2007 at 10:11 pm and is filed under Lino Demasi, WRITING ASSIGNMENTS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.