A Day at the MET(s)–New York City (Again)

After a quiet Christmas holiday, the family turmoil began slowly to settle. I read that mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves-Montgomery was giving her final Metropolitan Opera performance in Porgy and Bess during the last weekend of January. I decided to take the opportunity to get out-of-town and witness the performance. This would be the second time I’ve traveled to New York to see the opera/musical (depending on the approach of the musical presentation one used)–previously for the 2012 Broadway production with Audra McDonald and Norm Lewis. I also saw the 2019 production via The Met in HD, so I was really looking forward to seeing it live.

I took Amtrak to New York because it’s so hard to drive and park in the city safely that I feel like the Silver Bullet is much better off parked at the train station. I’m no longer used to getting up early enough to make a 7:20 a.m. train, but doing so meant lighter traffic during the drive to the station and a less crowded train car on the trip north. It also meant that I arrived nearly eight hours before the opera was scheduled to begin. I took a cab through Manhattan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art— also called The Met (I wonder how NYers differentiate between it and the Metropolitan Opera).

According to the museum’s website, two exhibitions, by artist John Wilson and another on Egyptian artifacts would be ending soon, so I decided to make them my targets for this trip. The museum is massive, and I quickly found myself drifting from my original intent. Instead, I walked the second floor, where the Arts of Africa exhibit was displayed, stopping at the opening to the Arts of Oceania room.

Even with the assistance of a new Have Seat, Will Travel walker, I knew I needed to be aware of how much walking I did, so I made my way up to the Divine Egypt exhibit. Suddenly, the flow of foot traffic seemed to increase dramatically. I rested for a bit and visited the museum’s gift shop before concluding that the traffic would not clear before I needed to leave. Therefore, I joined the masses and made my way through the display of statutes, tablets, and other ancient artifacts. I took lots of pictures, some of which are below, with the rest from my afternoon at the Met available athttps://singin1.click/piwigo/index.php?/category/1:

A cab ride delivered me to the site of Lincoln Center and the Metropolitan Opera more than an hour early, plenty of time to visit the gift shop and the concourse, where the Met Opera displayed some of the costumes worn during past productions. I was so pleasantly surprised to see a case with costumes, including one worn by soprano Leontyne Price and one by tenor George Shirley, from different productions of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. There was also a large portrait of Ms. Price nearby.

I quickly found my seat in the orchestra section and was initially concerned about possible obstruction from a large overhang that cut off the top portion of the stage. However, it didn’t inhibit the view of the scenery at all. Strangely, though, the orchestra’s sound seemed muffled to me, but whatever the cause, it didn’t impact the singing, thankfully. Speaking of the singing, the performers–soloists, chorus, and dancers–gave an outstanding presentation. I could sit back and simply enjoy. The audience also got into the spirit of the story, laughing at some scenes and booing the policemen when they appeared–even when the actors came out for ovations. Denyce Graves-Montgomery received special acknowledgement from the audience not only for her performance, but because this was her next-to-last essay on the Met stage.

Below are a few of the pictures from the evening:

The rest of the photos are available at https://singin1.click/piwigo/index.php?/category/2.

By the time I left the opera house, the temperature had dropped considerably. I had seen the weather forecast calling for snow. While it wasn’t expected to be heavy, that was enough for me to take a cab back to the train station with the plan to hunker down there until the train left for home Saturday afternoon. This was a change from the original plan to see some other sights in town that morning. Other than the change, the wait was uneventful, as was the trip back to the DMV and the drive home.

Trip Update

I’ve been debating whether to combine California in my plan to visit the southwestern United States national parks later this year. Then I saw an ad that offered Amtrak USA Rail passes for half price. This will allow me to travel to the nine national parks in California and one in Oregon this spring, first on the train, then using a rental car for the journey to the individual parks. It’s also possible that I would return to the DMV by diverting through Glacier NP, which would give me another chance to see parts of the park I missed on my first visit there.

The map below shows the route I have in mind. Fortunately, I should hopefully have the scheduling flexibility to take whatever time I need to get to each park without rushing.

My projected departure isn’t until April. Hopefully, it will then be warm enough for me to enjoy being outdoors during the visits, yet find the parks–especially Yosemite–less heavily crowded with other tourists since schools will still be in session during that time period.

If I can pull this off, it would be quite an adventure!