US orchestra’s opening gala was just one-third sold
NewsDismal news from the troubled Seattle Symphony:
By Melinda Bargreen
Special to The Seattle Times
Concert review
The start of a new concert season is always a special occasion. It’s a time to listen up, and to dress up; a time to return from the beaches and hiking trails to the symphony hall and beautiful music.
There was plenty of that last commodity at Thursday’s impressive and entertaining Raise the Curtain concert by the Seattle Symphony with guest conductor Ludovic Morlot. What was missing was the audience: From this viewer’s vantage point, it looked as if more than half of the hall’s seats were empty. (Only about 850 of the hall’s 2,500 seats were occupied, Courtney Bullard, the Symphony’s senior manager of public relations, said Friday.)
The attendance Thursday is both worrying and unfortunate: This season marks not only the 120th year of the Seattle Symphony, but also the 25th anniversary of Benaroya Hall. Those are milestones worth celebrating…
More here.
Perhaps there was a lack of excitement over Morlot (a good conductor, but not someone new). Perhaps the Dausgaard affair has had some effect. Perhaps people are afraid to wander the streets near Benaroya Hall. Just wondering out loud….
Seattle is becoming de-civilized and dangerous.
I used to attend several times a year but I wouldn’t dare those mean downtown streets now.
Go woke (vote Democrat) go broke.
This must be spam. Seattle downtown is incredibly safe. Unlike those red cities and states. What you speak is propaganda.
Mean downtown streets? It doesn’t take much to scare some people I guess. I was there on vacation not long ago and I found it very civilized and welcoming – lots of coffee shops, markets, restaurants, museums, the Microsoft headquarters – not to mention the beautiful views of the mountains all around. The Symphony’s hall is right in the middle of it all.
Well, what do you expect? No music director is in sight and with a rather dodgy season in the making, a list of Phoenix-like candidates dominate the few interesting prospects. As for the opening, Morlot is a lovely and talented musician, but perhaps the Immolation Scene and the High Holidays were not an ideal pairing.
This wasn’t their opening gala, just the first subscription concert of the season. The opening gala with Lang Lang is sold out.
Yes, and with a much less interesting program…
The gala is next week, and it’s almost sold out. Another bad headline from this mediocre clickbait trash website.
That you can’t help reading and commenting on.
Alas this blog gets so much attention people really have no choice but to make comments like this. I’m frankly surprised that comment was allowed to be published.
If it’s any consolation, Geneva Opera opened its season last week with a new staging of Don Carlos, and there were hundreds of seats as empty as Calvin’s.
On the other hand the SWR Symphony Orchestra opens its season in Freiburg today SOLD OUT. Prices are: €17, €25, €34, €42, €49, with local public transport included.
Maybe a choice of the music. A Sept. 29th concert with Lang Lang is’nearly sold out.’ See the same article https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/classical-music/seattle-symphonys-2023-opening-night-was-impressive-where-was-the-audience/
Seattle Symphony Orchestra’s 2nd subscription concert program is as follows:
—dates: Oct. 5, 7 and 8, 2023
—this date-pattern differs from both the opening week and the one-offs in the season’s second week, hindering vital subscription-selling
—each concert is called a “performance”; someone doesn’t know what the word means
—the program is marketed by means of a slug: “Stravinsky The Firebird” [sic], ignoring the music by Rimsky-Korsakov and Shostakovich and hence improperly signaling that part of the program matters more than the rest, as is sadly the fashion and LAO conventional wisdom
—seats are offered at $35, $49, $54, $67, $72, $83, $87, $112, $142; these are categorized crudely by architectural block rather than by relative perceived value, a commonplace and fundamental error
—when one chooses two $67 seats, one is immediately invited to “purchase” parking at $20: a convenience but also a ballooning of the buy before the deal is closed
—at the next step, one is hit by “fees” unspecified of $20.20, creating the sense of having being misled by the shown prices: again, the fashion and conventional wisdom
It wasn’t a very exciting programme, so that probably didn’t help.
I find that program very stimulating; were I a Seattle resident, I’d definitely have attended. (I wouldn’t bother with the gala, whose program I find dull.)
When they saw that ticket sales were down, they could have announced student rush tickets at an affordable price to fill more seats.
This is the age of computers. The disease started with DJs, then sequencing (recording music into a computer and fixing any imperfections mechanically), then, tracks (previously recorded music played in the background) with live players or singers playing “on top” of the tracks.
We must move forward as a society, as a world, but there will never be a replacement for a live musician, or musicians actually touching the instrument with their body, fingers, lips, air from their lungs, hands and creating sound.
Anything else is not live music. It is not the sound of one’s soul that touches all the other souls listening by physically touching an instrument.
In 1000 years, will studied musicians, as we now know them, even exist?
What a shame, it is a disgrace to all that came before.
I hope, for all humanity, and what ever comes in the future of our universe and beyond, we do not lose live music.
By the way, I speak not just of classical music, ALL styles of (live) music. Nowadays, any half-wit can create “music” digitally. That’s not the same as practice, practice and then practice some more; day after day, year after year. Then, go out and play your instrument in front of people or a camera.
I believe, part of it, comes down to money. If I am a producer or making a movie, it is more costly to hire an orchestra or a few musicians then to hire ONE guy or gal to create all the music synthetically (using a keyboard and computers).
God save the queen (or I guess now it’s Charles), and more importantly, LIVE music.
James
“but there will never be a replacement for a live musician, or musicians actually touching the instrument with their body, fingers, lips, air from their lungs, hands and creating sound.”
Agree but, in my experience, a lot of young (and not so young) people want songs and celebrity perfomers. They have little or no interest in the production of music in the way you describe. A piece of orchestral music is now a “song”, the only word they know.
And yet people will spend thousands to see Beyonce and Taylor Swift.
They fill the sports stadiums when it is
Springsteen. Or cold play. Or in America
Taylor swift. Blake Shelton.
Ther’s no accounting for taste.
“See” being the operative word.
CSOA insider and Chicagorat are unusually late to the party, making everything about the CSO. Could it be that CSO actually had a full hall for their opening week???
they have no full hall … lots of seats are open throughout next week
I care to disagree, our neighbors went on Thursday and said it was about 85-90% full, we went on Friday and couldn’t get three tickets together and the hall was full with some odd seat here and there. Symphony ball to my surprise was completely packed, there were very few empty seats that looked like no shows. I’ll be judging next week when I see it but I didn’t get the seats I wanted and the selection available was rather pitiful, certainly won’t be leaving it this late to buy tickets.
“One-third” is still better than “zero”! But let’s face it…Seattle, like San Fran, just ain’t what it used to be…too dangerous, too crime-ridden, too drugged, too “homeless”, too “unfriendly”……
especially at night!
To summarize…too Democrat.
Weirdly alt right non substantiated statement by a fear monger. “ Even when murders in the largest cities in red states are removed, overall murder rates in Trump-voting states were 12% higher than Biden-voting states across this 21-year period and were higher in 18 of the 21 years observed.”
It’s possible that the more exciting gala on the heels of opening night cannabalized ticket sales. St Louis did well as did National in DC.
It has been 35 years since I lived in Seattle. There is nothing new about this. Seattleites are notoriously fickle about attending the Symphony when the weather is nice, as it was last Thursday. They prefer to spend their time outdoors when they can. Perhaps a somewhat tame program with an unknown soloist contributed to this as well. You know what didn’t contribute to this, other than to brain-worm Fox News viewers? Fear of being murdered downtown.
Have you been downtown Seattle lately? A dystopic place at best. Car-jackings, assaults, robberies, etc. Benaroya Hall is right in the middle. I used to go hear the symphony but this day and time, I’d be taking too great a risk. Don’t blame the symphony, blame the uber-liberal city council and woke mayor.
Is the sparse attendance attributable to the urban violence and homeless situation that is plaguing many cities on the west coast?
If the “performance” doesn’t include Sir Mix-a-Lot inviting audience members on stage for twerking, then how many tickets can they realistically expect to sell?
The obvious glee with which this sort of thing is mis-reported on this site, particularly when it involves a US organization, is both puzzling and disturbing.
I think this has more to do with the fact that downtown Seattle is a complete mess and not safe.