Peter and D at Opening Night at Boston Symphony, September 24...

When I got the first promo mailer on this I thought it would be fun...a Boston institution, sort of like Opening Day at Fenway, but you don't have to freeze your ass off. I went for the "champagne reception," passed on the $1,000 per tickets.... including dinner after the concert.....didn't think we'd be that hungry.

The champagne reception was at 5:30, so an early start from the suburbs. We dressed for the occasion... D in vaguely retro pink and black, me in generic Ivy-League-guy Brooks Brothers and bow tie. Photographer from some obscure publication took our picture...hey, we were looking good....and a woman came up to D and whispered, "that outfit fits you perfectly." No s--- lady. Big crowd at the reception, from blue jeans to tuxes, marginal food, plenty of champagne, but a little early for that.

We usually sit in the first balcony, where you get a good view of the stage, from up and at an angle. Tonight we sat dead center on the main floor. A different view, with the whole orchestra spread out in front of you.

The music was all Russian 19th century... emotional, romantic, powerful, but also full of amusement ant playfulness.

Glinka to start, fast and furious. Then a scene from Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin. The singer is a young Latvian soprano. This is a big emotional scene. She stands there center stage. Not your New Yorker cartoon soprano, she is slim and young and one imagines from a distance beautiful. Standing in front of a 100-strong world-class orchestra in one of the great venues in classical music...wow.

At first she seems a little buried in the orchestra...like somebody fronting a rock band and you can't hear what she's singing. But maybe that's the way the piece is written, because she quickly takes hold and she is the focus of 3,000 people in the audience and the incredible power of a great orchestra.

Finally Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. A wonderful show-off piece. The first time I heard it was an Emerson, Lake, and Palmer version. The conductor, James Levine, is a star, the music director of both BSO and the Metropolitan Opera. He had a kidney transplant over the summer... which he did not tell BSO about until he did it! James being James, I guess. He conducts sitting down, but he is a big, muscular, flamboyant guy, and he seems to be having a great time... not bad for a guy with one kidney. Anyway, a rousing piece to kick off the season, left the crowd cheering, the $1,000 folks off to dinner at some posh spot, D and I to Matt Murphy's Pub in Brookline Village to share an Irish gourmet sandwich (is that an oxymoron?) and one of their overpowering desserts. Great fun.

Peter

(ed. note: Peter M is a writer, oarsman, and corn fritter aficionado with excellent taste in music. He occasionally shares his concert experiences with johnnykmusic.)