Music Under the Stairs

Most kinds of music are terrific, and the joint was jumping in the subway station under Union Square just now as a brass jazz combo brought a lot of smiles and cellphone cameras out on this pleasant second-day-of-spring Saturday. It presented a particular contrast for me, as a friend and I were just coming home from one of the terrific Metropolitan Opera HD live telecasts at the Regal Union Square movie theater. This time it was the controversial Mary Zimmerman production of Bellini's La sonnambula. One may disagree with her concept—a Pirandellian story of a production of the opera overlaid with an intra-cast love story—but today's playing and singing would rival, I daresay, the great interpreters of the past. The incredibly gifted Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez can stand comparison with anyone. Memorable performances from this attractive duo, who have major stage chemistry together. But hearing the enthusiastic jazz musicians afterward, amid the roar of the trains and the travelers, had its own rewards.

Où sont les neiges?

Whenever we New Yorkers thought that winter had to be over, a friend used to remind me that "The Blizzard of [18] '88 was in March!" But the great Snows of Yesteryear seem to have gone the way of global warming, with a few brief exceptions. I do read that ski resorts in the Northeast have been doing very well this year, but NYC seems relatively immune to the white stuff. We did have a couple of March snowfalls, as this March 3, 2009 shot of Bryant Park and the back of the Public Library demonstrates. It was one of the few days that I got to wear the very nice winter boots that I bought last season and wore only a couple of times then. You have to photograph snow pretty quickly here before it turns grey, and then black.

Tomorrow will be the Ides of March, but only Shakespeare buffs will take note, I suppose. I just wish that someone, some day, will say to me on that date, "The Ides of March are come" just so that I can answer, "Aye, Caesar, but not gone!"