Rush, Rush, Rush Around

Recently I had an unexpected night free and noticed that at the NY Philharmonic, Barbara Hannigan would be conducting the orchestra while simultaneously performing La Voix Humaine, a solo opera about a woman driven to madness by romantic disappointment.

Tickets were in the range of $180-350, which is, for me, too pricey for going to something on a lark, but I traveled to the Upper West Side and went to the box office to find out if I could buy a rush ticket. I figured if the answer was no, I could take a walk in Central Park (it’s so much easier to take a gamble on things when the weather is perfect). But the answer was a ‘yes’ and the seat they gave me was in row G - the sixth row - center - what luck. It was $22.

I was so happy to be in that beautiful room anticipating excellence, so relieved after a week of teaching, editing, writing, parenting, to let my mind expand and wander and rest, with my phone turned all the way entirely off and buried deep in my bag.

The show itself was excellent but it was not the narcotizing yum I expect from the NY Phil. Instead Hannigan’s performance, accompanied by a video installation displaying real-time close-ups of her face and movements, was a true tour de force, a strenuous feat of talent, emotional unfurling and physical coordination. It felt truly of the moment - to portray multitasking as a thing of genius and madness, to watch a brilliant, accomplished woman lose at love, trying and failing to control everything and maintain dignity, with the insanity and impossibility of that fully legible.

What I’m craving in my limited leisure time is not over stimulation, it’s not being in the presence of a mad woman or mad man protagonist, it is either a narcotizing yum, a transporting landscape of beauty, or the challenge of slowing my mind down, of deep presence, deep focus. It’s what I offer when I teach and it’s part of why people have transformative experiences while taking the class. But still, once La Voix Humaine was over, with the audience’s rapture thundering behind me, I found myself moved to tears and stood to applaud. “What a complete maniac,” I thought to myself, in response to the character and to the performer/conductor bringing her alive.

The run of the show is over - here’s The NY Times review - but I’m just here to encourage you, if you have a free night, to go to the Philharmonic and roll the dice.

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There are truly great things being auctioned for my kids’ progressive elementary school’s PTA. Dinner for two at Eleven Madison Park? Yankees tickets? Pickles? Thanks in advance for bidding! Your support makes a difference in the lives of hundreds of families. It’s a miracle of a school and the PTA does amazing things on a shoe string.

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I took my ex and our kids to see Burnout Paradise and we had a blast. The production features four actors running on treadmills completing tasks and challenges - another work of live performance that puts a mirror up to the insanity of the multi tasking way so many of us are so often living. It’s very funny, full of surprises and whole heartedly embraces chaos and audience participation at a level one rarely sees. Indeed it is the rare theater piece that can simultaneously satisfy high and low minded appetites, that can hold short attention spans and deep thinkers. It’s running at the Astor Place theater until May 23. My kids can’t wait to go back. Tickets here.

Where are my Rhodies? In a few weeks, I’m planning to attend the US premiere of Monument, a six part doc series on Rhode Island by my fellow school parents, Tim Geraghty & Sarah Halpern, at Anthology Film Archives. “This (aptly named) monumental new 6-part documentary is ostensibly an essay film on the history of the diminutive state of Rhode Island, and the contemporary ramifications of that history – but in Geraghty and Halpern’s hands, the tale of this particular region opens up into a nearly bottomless well of resonances and relevancies.” CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS

I’m enjoying the new Kacey Musgraves - check out Dry Spell and Mexico Honey.

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Paintings by Joan Brown whose work is on view at Matthew Marks.

I will leave you with this gem.

xo Lizzie

PS - Want to write this summer? I’ll be teaching a 7-week memoir and personal essay writing class on Zoom beginning July 1. Join us! Info here.