Indy surprises visitors with its clean and compact downtown area and thrilled the masses and Jimmy Fallon at the Super Bowl last year with its outdoor promenade Georgia Street. It is famous for a racing debacle that takes place every May, a pro football team that won a Super Bowl, an NBA team which until recently was more famous for the criminal antics of its players than for its skills on the court, and the 2012 World Champion WNBA team, The Indiana Fever. It's also quite proud of its roller derby teams and burlesque troops, both of which in number are highly disproportionate to the population. We have a minor league hockey team and a minor league baseball team, both of which are more fun and more affordable than the professional sporting events. In 2014, we are slated to get our first professional soccer team, and that might be the first pro men's sport I enjoy.
Indy is not known for its music or theater or festivals or art.
It's kind of a secret to outsiders, and to insiders for that matter, that we have some amazing opportunities to take in what I consider to be the finer things in life: A professional symphonic orchestra, a professional opera company, a professional ballet company, a few professional dance companies, several theaters for major Broadway touring shows, a few arena concert venues, and several professional theaters. For every professional company, there are dozens of amateur companies, and by amateur I simply mean "not paid," not "less talented." Okay, they are probably not as talented, but for the most part, they are really good, and no doubt add to the cultural value of the city.
I had a Journey in my own city this past weekend and experienced both worlds. On Friday night I went to the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra for Bruckner's Fourth Symphony
conducted by Antoni Wit, who was the teacher of the ISO's own Krzysztof Urbański.
This handsome young man is proof enough that symphony is alive, young, and sexy!
We nearly lost our symphony this year. Just never enough money for the arts because we must constantly feed the hungry beast of professional sports and their ridiculous balloon contracts. Indianapolis boasts one of the country's only professional symphony orchestras that performs year round. As symphonies go, the ISO is a model of success in growing audience, selling out weekend and some weeknight (ISO Happy Hour Thursdays) performances year round. And yet, the powers that be questioned the value of this high art form that is accessible to all. Students can get in for $12, and there are wing gallery seats for just $20. (The cheapest seat (nosebleed) for a pro football game runs about $70--that is hardly accessible to the masses.)
When I go to the symphony, I travel so far. I travel to a land of unfamiliar traditions and customs (the maestro playfully making numerous entrances and exits to laughter and applause from the audience; the first chair violinists getting standing ovations). I travel to distant centuries when most of this music was composed, to Europe, where most of it was composed. I travel to a different side of laid back ball-cap/team jersey-wearing Indy, where people come dressed up in shiny clothes and hats. Emotionally, I travel to another dimension.
A music lover since I can remember, it's always been lyrics that have stirred me, and the first time I went to the symphony (two years ago), I wondered if I would be bored just listening and if it would be a stuffy atmosphere. How wrong I was. The acoustics at Hilbert Circle are phenomenal, and there's a reason the term "movement" is used to describe the different "episodes" of the symphony. I have been moved to tears and joy and excitement, particularly in the case of Gustav Holst's "The Planets" (1915) last year at the ISO.
My favorite movement in The Planets: Mars, Bringer of War!
Many people believe that symphony should be delegated solely to the classics, and that "pops" concerts are a bastardization of the genre.
You know who says this? Elitist-wannabe snobs who need to feel superior to people who perhaps were not brought up in fine arts. Last year I saw every variety of symphony--18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, pops, and choral concerts, and even a cover band. One of my most memorable nights at the ISO was when a John Denver tribute singer sang his greats with the backdrop of the symphony, with all this wonderful John Denver-inspired wildlife video playing above the stage on a huge screen. Denver was not just a singer/songwriter, he was a social activist and he personally changed the way people treated our environment. He is also a bastion of my childhood, so nostalgia figured prominently in my outpouring of emotions.
(In March, the ISO is bringing an ABBA tribute band to play their greatest hits with symphony back-up, and I cannot wait!)
After the symphony, we walked the streets of Indy on a January-thaw (Thermidor?) clear evening and took in all the sights of brisk sidewalks. We zipped over to the Eagle's Nest, a round, spinning (it constantly rotates 360 degrees over forty-five minutes) upscale restaurant that sits atop the Hyatt Regency for drinks, or "nightcaps" as they always sickeningly said on the Love Boat. I'd never been in this pillar of Indy dining and nightlife, and it was nearly deserted when we arrived, which made it even more romantic. We ordered some wine, and took in the city, and chatted about life. Brilliant!
Moving along to the amateur realm of my art-filled weekend.
Here's a truth about me. I hate musicals. They are dippy, annoying, and often feature a storyline about a dashing boy and stupid girl who pines after him. Not always. Often. I did like "Wicked," which I saw at Pantages in Hollywood. I liked "Rent,"--mostly. I liked "The Assassins."
I think it's high time I give musicals a fair shake. There are dumb movies and books, but I don't completely dismiss those mediums, so why do I so so with musicals?
So I went to a very popular amateur musical theater called Footlite Musicals to see an unusual musical called "The Last Five Years," by Jason Robert Brown. It was set up cabaret-style, which presented blocking issues, but at least made for an intimate experience, and as theater goes, I prefer intimate settings over enormous halls. I had high hopes for this confessional piece about falling in love, marrying, falling out of love, and divorcing. Brown purportedly wrote it about his own divorce and did not obfuscate his guilt in the failure of the marriage.The story was told simultaneously by "Cathy" and "Jamie." Cathy tells her side of the story from divorce to first meeting while Jamie tells his from meeting to divorce. The stories intersect in the middle, at their wedding, when both were still happy. In the back drop was a stunningly beautiful display of framed "art," that changed from stills to filmed video, and device that was expertly used and effective.
Overall it was enjoyable and I was glad to have seen it. I'd love to see it performed by professionals, but in the meantime, I consider myself fortunate to have access to such modern and innovative theater. I forget if tickets were $15 or $20, but they were well worth it. I could see ten plays like these for what one touring Broadway production would cost in an arena theater.
I spent Sunday in the woods of Eagle Creek and catching up on Season 2 of Downton Abbey.
This was a fine journey in my very own space!
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