I was home on Saturday afternoon. As I have for over forty years, at I o’clock, starting every December, when I can, I listen to the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcast. It was the first broadcast of the season. Very unusually, the performance was not of an opera, but the Requiem of Giuseppe Verdi. James Levine was conducting. It was, if I am correct, his 2865th performance with the Metropolitan Opera, far more than any other performer in the history of the house. It probably was his last.
Monthly Archives: December 2017
We Asked and People Came—by Ayala Emmett
Bobbi Berg
Karen Elam
Barbara Orenstein-Present
Sunday December 3 turns out to be a beautiful sunny day, a surprising treat in Rochester. I sit in a line of cars inching our way to unload our donations at the door. The line is long, the day is pleasantly warm, and I decide to park my car and walk over. I do not know yet that I would speak to the organizers of the event. I am unaware that I would encounter Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America, or that I would leave with unexpected gifts. My plan is to just drop off my items and enjoy the rest of the day.