posted
Raia was sitting at row 1, I was at 16 two seats away from the 20th century composer Kopytman, and a row behind my ex-biology teacher.
What I do want to say is that even though it's just the Israel Camerata (no big name), directed by the lesser-known Avner Biron, we had a night that anywhere in big European cities would've made the audience stomp around screaming "bravo".
Of course, being Israel, the average age of attendants was probably 60; most of them the usual crowd that claps politely, even when the soprano is second only to Ruth Holton and has not yet graduated from the Musical Academy in Jerusalem.
BWV 208, 243 and 140; that was all that was needed to make it the best concert of my life, and probably one of the ten best my father ever heard - and he was for years visiting 80 concerts or so a year. We're talking brilliant stuff here, we're talking Raymund Nolte, we're talking about the same Camerata who's inviting Joshua Rifkin to perform next year. But it's no big name.
And I payed the equivalent of less than US$4 to get in. I sat two seats next to Kopytman and heard a performance of four [vocal] soloists (aside a choir which I label "excellent": two of them (Soprano & Tenor) you could call "stupendous" or "brilliant", one of them (Bass) is labeled "superb" or "top-notch", and one of thm (undergraduate soprano) wouldn't fall short of "divine". I'm serious; Raia can support my words. I was the first one to stand up at the end, clap my hands to scarlet numbness and scream "bravo" with the soloists and conductor smiling back. I was willing to rob a bank just so I could buy the singers so they can play it for ever and ever.
I loved Cantata 208, one of the movements there got me going mellow. I was almost crying out of joy. 143 was just as good, though shorter, and I was biting my tongue not to scream out of joy. Then came the Mother of All Cantatas - Cantata BWV 140, Wachet Auf ruft uns die Stimme. Up until now I can't speak coherently.
My father wanted to show my mother how good the last one (BWV 140) was, so he played the first movement from the 1989 recording of Gardiners. She said it was "nice", and my father almost suicided, claiming that it was like saying that the views of the Amalfi Coast* were "OK", or saying that Leonardo da Vinci had "adequate paintings". The Sopranist (suff?) was so good that I made up a joke: "the sopranist went out of key today" - the performance was so good that this joke was actually funny.
Anyway, you can see my state; this is just how euphoric I was. A car was honking its horn out in the street after the performance. I wa so pissed off I started kicking it until it was dinted. The driver came out all angry and I almost killed him (I did so at least with my looks). So good the show was! It took my father's reluctant restraint to stop me beating the driver up (after several screeches of curses that would get me banned permanently from the forum if I ever said them, and would make Kent in Act II, Scene II of King Lear sound as if he was praying to Oswald).
Anyway, I'm euphoric and thought that Hatrack is the first place I should say it at.
Cheers, Jonathan
* Which was ironic, because at the time I was holding a mug whose handle my mother broke; a mug really important to me that I bought on the Amalfi Coast.
Posts: 358 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
OK, I'm going to bed. God knoweth when I shall arise; if there are no posts by then, I know I've bored the Pajesus (sp?) out of you.
Posts: 358 | Registered: May 2005
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quote: Anyway, you can see my state; this is just how euphoric I was. A car was honking its horn out in the street after the performance. I wa so pissed off I started kicking it until it was dinted. The driver came out all angry and I almost killed him (I did so at least with my looks).
Jon, that's the kind of euphoria for which people take medication.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
It was gorgeous. I'm really glad I went. The concert, I mean. And Jonny, where'd you disappear to? I couldn't find you afterwards, you ran away. I waited outside the auditorium, and you never came out!
Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
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I took the backdoor from the top of the auditorium which leads you directly out from the bottom of the stairs which go up to the front-side. Sorry!
Posts: 358 | Registered: May 2005
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Ah, I see. Well, I was trying to be nice and wait for you so I could say goodbye, since I probably won't see you again before I leave, but no matter. Not important. *sniff*
Posts: 7877 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
I thought you left, by the way. The first 14 rows started disappearing, I took the only exit I could. *Sniff.*
Posts: 358 | Registered: May 2005
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