Cultural Dabblings

Lately I've done a few interesting things culturally, which isn't difficult when you live next to New York City. We get a lot of spill-over into the Arts in New Jersey with some great theater and concerts on this side of the Hudson River too.

Last night we went to the brand new Prudential Center in Newark, NJ enjoying Don's passion - hockey. The arena is nick-named 'The Rock' - see photo. The Leafs were in town to face the Devils and we got tickets through my UWO Alumni group. The new arena is beautiful! Unfortunately there were still a lot of empty seats, a problem not appearing to be fixed by moving the team out of the Meadowlands area. We were content in our section surrounded by Leaf fans, also transplanted Canadians. I love hearing the Canadian anthem again. (Leafs gave it up in the 3rd, losing 3-2.)

A week before I had the great pleasure of seeing the St Petersburg Philharmonic orchestra at the NJPAC (NJ Performing Arts Center) also in Newark. Don opted out of this event (surprise!) and I went with 3 friends. It was FANTASTIC! They had a guest pianist there from Brazil, Nelson Freire. WOW! The conductor is Yuri Temirkanov who was spellbinding to watch. He doesn't use a baton - he 'scoops' sections into the music, points, looks, flutters his fingers - so living the music.

Before that I saw Don Giovanni, an opera by Mozart, at the City Opera at the Lincoln Center. This is the 3rd opera I've seen in my one-a-year dabbling in opera. The 1st was Madame Butterfly at The Met - excellent, 2nd was Barber of Seville at the City Opera - hilarious & fun, and the 3rd, Don Giovanni - I fell asleep. Who can stay awake for 3-1/2 hours of opera all of it set in the nighttime!!! I don't think it is an appropriate opera for an opera newbie. I need fun opera, which many of them are as many operas were composed for the masses way back when. Of course they had to stand ... tougher to fall asleep.

In late Sep I went on a dinner cruise around Manhattan as a guest of one of our agencies at work. The event was very classy, topped off by our own private fireworks display off the east side of Manhattan with the Empire State and Chrysler buidings in the background, and dancing under the stars on the top deck. Weather was perfect. It was really a magical treat!

Before that, probably Spamalot with the kids in Manhattan, or The Drowsy Chaperone with a bunch of friends, or a Jazz Club in the East Village when my UWO friend Carolyn & her husband were in NYC - always something good to attend around here ... you could make it your day and night job ... if you could afford it!