Finger Food on the Tenth Floor and an Evening at the Opera
Letter from New York! Luise Müller explores cultural life in the city that never sleeps.
Nov 20, 2015
The Met has made its home at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, in Manhattan, since 1966.
Image Credit: Privat
Otello in New York. Luise Müller enjoys Verdi’s opera at the Metropolitan Opera – “the Met.”
Image Credit: Private
James Levine has been the Music Director of the Met since 1974, making him its longest-serving director.
Image Credit: Private
Hi from New York! I join you today with a report on my first party in Manhattan: One of the professors invited the whole seminar over for drinks and finger food at his place, located at an address between Harlem and the Upper West Side. The porter sent me to the tenth floor. Once I got there, I was thrilled – the apartment was huge, and definitely chic. And no wonder: My professor’s son is an architect, as I learned later on. The view of the Hudson River from up there isn’t bad, either.
I finally got a chance to go to the Metropolitan Opera early this week. I can report on various strategies for getting cheap tickets. Columbia’s theatre box office on campus sells discounted tickets, but they are all sold out until next year.
But on the website of the “Met” – as the opera is known here – you can register with a student ID and gain access to 35-dollar tickets that would probably cost around 200 dollars otherwise. Third, there are “rush” tickets: Whenever a performance is not sold out, the remaining tickets are released on the day of the performance at a reduced price.
If, however, your colleagues and friends are as nice as mine are – hi, BTS 2012! – you don’t need any of these strategies, because you will have been given various Met gift certificates as a parting gift when leaving Berlin. I decided to attend a performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Otello. The production was fairly traditional, but well done. The next tickets are already on order!