Rarely have I been as excited about the prospect of a bus ride as I was on Friday. True, like most buses, the one pictured on the left was excessively air-conditioned, with seats designed for people with very odd spines; this bus, however, offered non-stop service to an opera festival. The Bard festival clearly knew the audience to which they were offering this service: the pickup point was conveniently located in familiar territory, almost directly behind the Metropolitan Opera. The young man bearing a clipboard also bore a guitar. I half-hoped that this might presage opera sing-alongs, but it didn't (most of the rest of the passengers were very respectable and restrained senior citizens, but what is a lifetime of opera-going for if not to teach you the words to rousing choruses? I jest, of course, Gentle Readers.) We traveled north, noting an increasing frequency of farmers' markets, until we reached...
...the Fisher Center itself! I really liked its architecture. Seen in its broader context, its unusual roofline seems to echo the surrounding hills rather than a spaceship. A note on seating: with student discount, I got a very good cheap seat in a balcony box. Seated in the second box from the stage, in the row overlooking the auditorium rather than next to the hallway, I could see almost the entire stage without difficulty, and the acoustics were fine. Being seated on the hallway side, or further back, might not have been so congenial, but I was well pleased. N.B. that the balcony box chairs, in contrast to the seats in the center of the theater, are not upholstered at all. Still, I was miles closer to the action than in my usual back-of-family-circle perch at the Met, so I felt that I'd snagged a bargain.
More architecture!
Nature!
