[Magdalen] Bernstein’s “Mass”

[Lesley de Voil]

Thanks for the lovely description, Grace.  Apropos the best seats, I could
never work out why front stalls used to be more expensive- after all, you
got a crick in your neck through having to look up all the time. Wasn’t
until much later I realised those were the seats for being *seen* in !

On Mon, 15 Oct 2018 at 13:33, Grace Cangialosi <gracecan at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hadn’t quite finished..
> The balcony had its own separate street entrance and box office on the
> side of the theater so black and white people would have no contact with
> each other. That has also been restored and the history exhibited inside
> it, but it is no longer used as an   entrance to the the theater itself.
> After sitting on the balcony today, though, I realized that it has some of
> the best seats in the house!
>
> > On Oct 14, 2018, at 11:26 PM, Grace Cangialosi <gracecan at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Ever since Leonard Bernstein’s “Mass” opened the Kennedy Center in 1971,
> I have wanted to see it, but I’ve never had the opportunity.
> > Today I finally got a chance, and it was an amazing experience! It was
> the regional premier and was put on by the UVa Music Department. I could
> see why it isn’t performed very often, though some of the choruses are
> performed as stand-alone pieces. But it has actors and dancers, a
> children’s choir and a whole
> >
> > Susan Hagen joined me, and we had seats in the front row of the balcony
> on the center aisle. It was an absolutely riveting performance, and we were
> completely exhausted when it was over! The work runs an hour and 50 minutes
> with no intermission, but the time flew by.
> >
> > If you ever have a change to see a fully staged performance of this, go!
> >
> > As an aside, this was a grand old movie theater that has been
> beautifully restored. The rbalcony where we were sitting was originally
> where African-Americans, or “colored people,” as they were called then, had
> to sit. It had its own separate entrance from the street
>
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