Can I just say that I turned down the opportunity to attend this concert not once but TWICE. Thankfully, the universe is used to me making crap decisions and so miraculously there was an extra ticket (Wanda - you're the best!).
After settling in, getting changed, and partaking in an excellent Lebanese dinner, I made my first trip to the Kennedy Center which is just breathtaking - particularly this evening with the sun setting over the Potomac and the men in their tuxes and the ladies in elegant dresses. I'm afraid that I spend much of the night with my mouth hanging open. What a lady, my mother would be so proud.
The NSO is a delight - I forget how much I love to hear live music until I hear it again (particularly an awesome string section! Hey cellos - what up!) and we started off the evening with the National Anthem (and yes, the National Anthem, played in said Capitol, when everyone joins in is akin to a parade and I am surprised that this did not make me teary). The new maestro, Christoph Eschenbach knows his way around a tiny stick and we flung right through the overture to Die Fledermaus.
Then, I'm pretty certain I stopped breathing because suddenly, for the first time ever, Renee Fleming and I were in the same space. She sang and time stopped and SarahB passed over her binoculars and I promptly put them up to my face the wrong way around which made Sally laugh and I focused in on some serious bling and did I mention that time in which time stopped.
Later, after I think I started breathing again I hurt myself on my cocktail ring by clapping too hard and it was all over in a rush of applause and Kari asking me if I was happy now. Whew!
Sadly Act II did not open with a sing along but instead with another delightful bit of Strauss (the other one this time), Kaiserwalzer, Op. 437. I do love a waltz! And then, also for the first time ever, I watched Lang Lang who played music like no one I have ever seen before! What a pleasure to watch and listen to him. An unexpected treat - icing, if you will, on top of cake roughly the size of Ohio.
Encores all around - Christoph and Lang Lang played a charming Debussy piece and then Renee returned.
It wasn’t until this that I cried but it is pretty safe to say that I had goosebumps from start to finish the entire evening.
Tomorrow!
by John Henry Mackay
English edition of the song by John Bernhoff, 1925 Universal-Edition
Tomorrow's sun will rise in glory beaming,
And in the pathway that my foot shall wander,
We'll meet, forget the earth, and lost in dreaming,
Let heav'n unite a love that earth no more shall sunder...
And towards that shore, its billows softly flowing,
Our hands entwined, our footsteps slowly wending,
Gaze in each other's eyes in love's soft splendour glowing,
Mute with tears of joy and bliss ne'er ending...
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