Earlier this week I returned home after a short visit to New York City. I went there with a friend who wanted to look at some neighborhoods that might be of interest should he be able to move there as is his present desire. We found two delightful areas. The urban area of Brooklyn Heights was charming as was the more suburban setting of the Forest Hills section of Queens. The latter is probably more pricey however as it appeared to be mostly single family homes.

While in the Big Apple we took in three performances at the Metropolitan Opera (Carmen, Otelllo, and Aida). This was our first experience in that venue and were impressed by its excellent acoustics. Here the San Francisco Opera house has a rather muffled sound especially for the orchestra but at the Met the sound was very much alive as in good concert halls. The storm scene at the beginning of Act One of Otello knocked our socks off as they say. It was very impressive. It was an excellent performance too with Ben Heppner in the title role and sounding better than ever and Barbara Frittoli as Desdemona. She too was very impressive. James Levine conducted Otello. The cast in Carmen was very good too with an unknown (to me) Russian mezzo (Marina Domashenko) in the title role. The tenor was Neil Shicoff who also sounded better than I have ever heard him. Hei-Kyung Hong sang the role of Micaela and was the best in this cast. Placido Domingo conducted. Aida was the big disappointment except for the fact that I finally saw a Grand March that was grand. The cast was not very good and even Dolora Zajick, a favorite, was having an off-night. The soprano, Fiorenza Cedolins, was terrible. Oh well, two out three in a weeks time is not bad all things considered.

Now back to the real world and the San Francisco Opera and the Symphony.