Water Music

Last Friday, I was on a very sleepy and snowy flight from Detroit to New York’s Laguardia airport. As early as it was (the flight left at 6am, meaning a 3:30 wake up in order to make it to the airport on time through the several inches of snow that had fallen the night before), I was still pulsing with excitement at the coming weekend where I would be volunteering at the annual conference of the Association of Performing Arts Professionals with six other University of Michigan students. To pass the time, I buried myself in an article in The New Yorker called “Water Music” that discussed the October opening of the new Revson fountain in Lincoln Center plaza as part of the venue’s 1.3 billion dollar redevelopment project. The description of four hundred and seventy-five gallons of water in the air forming “a mighty column of water that slowly rises to a height of twelve feet” was enchanting, but somehow I didn’t make the connection that I was traveling to the city that housed this majestic structure.

About thirty-six hours and one iPod later (it had been a casualty of my sleepiness on the flight and is probably being enjoyed by someone else who happened to enjoy seat 8B on my American Airlines plane that day), I found myself standing in front of the very fountain about which I had been reading as I awaited the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Turandot. The fountain was stunning; illuminated by the fully lit opera house behind it and serving as the centerpiece of the hustle and bustle of hundreds of patrons scurrying into the warmth of the performance that awaited them. I stood outside for a few minutes, downing a tall latte from Starbucks that would ensure my full attention during Puccini’s masterpiece, and took in the energy that surrounded me. Standing in Lincoln Center at performance time is a humbling experience for anyone, much less a student of the performing arts; the energy in the plaza is a reflection of both the current love of the performing arts and the history of exceptional performances in what is perhaps the very heart of classical music in America.

My first experience at the Metropolitan Opera was seven years ago, when my family and I drove up from our Maryland home to see a production of Verdi’s Il trovatore. I hadn’t been to the Met since then, so I had a vague picture of its interior (although I knew to be excited for the personal subtitle screen on the seat in front of me no matter where I was sitting). My seat was fantastic, especially considering my ticket had only been purchased a few hours before at a student price, and gave me a spectacular view of both the stage as well as the layers of the opera house stretching high above me like some kind of giant birthday cake. After being joined by the lovely Rachel Lum, I sat brimming with anticipation as the lights dimmed and the curtain slowly rose, signaling the onset of what would be an exhilarating three hours.

There are only so many words I can use to describe the evening. The set was beautifully grand, the voices so rich that they actually served as my dessert for the evening, and the story charmingly timeless. What makes an evening at the Metropolitan Opera so special is not just the astounding voices so often heard on stage (although that certainly is a large part of any opera performance), but the collaborative effort of the entire production. When the curtain first rose on Saturday night, my eyes came close to filling with tears before a note had even been sung. The beauty of the entire experience – the set, the costumes, the design of the hall and stage, the lush sound of the orchestra from the pit – would not have been possible unless each element had been perfectly executed and placed to complement the others. Bland costumes would distract from the sounds emanating from the voices of the performers, and no production stands a chance of achieving its full potential when presented in a tired looking opera house.

The power of collaborative efforts that I realized at the opera exists outside of an individual production; it is what makes Lincoln Center a strong institution across its twelve arts organizations, and is exactly the purpose of conferences such as APAP that bring together arts communities from all over the world. In an ever-changing society where the status of the arts remains uncertain, it is imperative that people continue to come together and share as they did last weekend in New York. Perhaps the most striking thing I learned from my APAP experience is that collaborative efforts to improve the arts need to exist outside the boundaries of the field. I was lucky enough to be scheduled to work at a session called “At the ‘Tipping Point’: Artists and Climate Change,” that discussed how the arts can be used to raise awareness about the climate crisis (for more details on the session, see Maureen Stych’s entry below). I entered the session skeptical – how on earth can the concepts of art and climate change possibly be linked? The details are best explained in Maureen’s post, but the most important message that the session contributed is that we need another Copernican revolution. Copernicus thought the earth was the center of the universe, only to discover nine planets revolved around something much bigger, the sun. Citizens of the world need to follow his example and realize that different disciplines are not as central as they think; rather, they work together to maintain a sustainable existence. It is the same collaboration that made my evening at the Met so special that can enrich the arts as a whole, not only through discussion across the field but every branch of knowledge and study.

By: Patrick Carter

Intern, Office of Development and External Relations at the School of Music, Theatre & Dance