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I was in New York a week or so ago for a four night culture packed trip.  

Artistically, I planned my trip to coincide with Art Fair Week.  I attended Armory, Pulse, and Scope Art Fairs.  I didn't have time for Volta.  Armory is the biggest and most prestigious of the fairs with most of the biggest dealers and biggest name artists.

One fascinating aspect was that I was granted a VIP Pass to Armory.  Aside from getting you in free to the fairs and a lot of museums in town for the week, you can also sign up for visits to the residences of private collectors.  I did go to one located a half block west of Central Park on West 67th Street.  The apartment was perhaps 800 square feet with just two rooms and 1 ½ baths.  I've had hotel rooms that were bigger and I've seen bigger closets in Leawood.  The owners were AVID art collectors and had managed to cover almost every square inch of their apartment with modern art-some by major established artists, but many by emerging artists.  There was art underneath glass coffee tables, on top of counters, in the hallway to their apartment.  They even hung art on the front and backs of the doors.  Fascinating.  

I was also lucky enough to be invited to the Armory Brunch at the home of Susan and Michael Hort.  The Hort's daughter, Rema, tragically died of cancer several years ago.  She was heavily involved in modern art and started the Young Collector's Society for the New Museum.  The Horts established a foundation to help fund bring cancer patients and their families together while undergoing treatment and also to help young artists just out of art school.  The Hort's purchased and renovated an old industrial building in Tribeca some years back and use the top three floors as their residence.  They are MAJOR art collectors of mostly emerging artists with only a fraction of their art on display at any one time.  The renovated living space is all wood floors, light colors, a few brick walls and the overall space is very open and airy.  Just like a loft space you might see in Architectural Digest.  Their art is beautifully hung and displayed.  While I didn't like everything (I doubt if anyone would like everything in my house), there were some incredible works on display.  The combination of a great living space and so much new art was a great experience.  For more information on the Horts and their foundation, see www.rhmfoundation.org.

The Art Fairs were reportedly slower than in previous years due to the economy and the downturn in the art market.  While I saw a lot of what I consider 'junk,'  there were many major pieces I would have loved to buy -  if only I were really loaded.  Going through Armory was the equivalent of going to the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney, the Modern section at the Metropolitan Museum times five.  There was a tremendous amount of art including Picassos, Chagalls, Pollacks, all the way up to the trendiest of current artists.  

On another artsy note, I did go to the new Museum of Art and Design at Columbus Circle.  This is a smallish museum in a beautifully redone building.  The collection on display is interesting and focuses, obviously, on design.  If you like design, go see it.  If not, skip it.

I also spent three hours browsing the art galleries in Chelsea, many of which have been hit hard by the recession and quite a few have closed.  If you have never been to Chelsea, it can be a wonderful way to browse some great contemporary art for a few hours.  

Musically, the trip was hit and miss.  I'll cover Broadway first.  

BTW-If you are going to New York any time soon, get a ticket to South Pacific at Lincoln Center.  I saw this production a year ago and it is one of the best productions of any Broadway musical I have ever seen.  It is playing at least through June and won seven well-deserved Tony Awards.  

On this trip, the best Broadway show I saw was Billy Elliott.  This musical is based on the movie of the same name about a boy from an Irish coal mining town and family who wants to be a ballet dancer and features music by Elton John.  While I am not a big Elton John fan, this is some of his best work -  from labor strike protest songs, to show biz numbers to heart-breaking ballads.  The experience was very powerful.  The production is excellent as were all the leads.  Billy Elliott originally opened in London a few years ago and received rave reviews as did this New York production.  This is certain to take home most of the Tony Awards for musicals.  A must see.

I had also bought a ticket to Shrek, the musical based on the animated feature from several years ago.  I bought a ticket because it was to star Sutton Foster as Princess Fiona along with Brian d'Arcy James as Shrek.  They are two of my favorite Broadway performers and are enormously talented.  The production was magnificent with great sets and costumes.  All the performances were great.  The problem was the music which was very routine and basically inert.  There wasn't a single memorable song in the entire score.  Too bad as it wasted some great talent.

New York is full of small theater companies that produce rarely-performed works.  So I went to see a production of Cabaret Girl by Jerome Kern and P.G. Wodehouse from 1922.  I just figured I would never get another chance to see this.  It was produced by Musicals Tonight (www.musicalstonight.org) with minimal sets and all the actors reading from the score.  While I appreciated the effort and was glad to have seen it, I found it to be less than Kern's best effort and discovered in the process that  I don't seem to be too wild about 1920's British humor.

I also attended the York Theater's (www.yorktheatre.org)  production of Enter Laughing.  This is a revival of a flop from 1976 originally titled, "So Long 174th Street".  This was more professionally done than Cabaret Girl with several minor "name" actors whom you might recognize from TV and movies.  While it received a rave review from the New York Times, I certainly understand why it flopped.  It was well performed, but still a mediocre musical.

 If you are wondering about any of the current crop of straight plays on Broadway, ask someone else.  I only go to musicals because I am intellectually shallow.

Now on to opera at the Metropolitan Opera.  The hot ticket was to Bellini's La Sonnambula("The Sleepwalker") with Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Florez in the title roles.  I had only seen La Sonnambula once before in Paris and was unimpressed.  I thought this was a perfect opportunity to try it again with a great cast at the Met.  The production was by Mary Zimmerman who set the story as a modern day "story within a story" where the plot is acted out by people rehearsing for a production of La Sonnambula.  While I was not wild about this production, I didn't think it did it any harm.  Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Florez (two of my absolute favorite singers) were marvelous and I doubt this could have been better sung or acted.  Truthfully, I still find La Sonnambula to be rather boring (ok, I absolutely refuse to take a cheap shot and say it was a snoozefest) with only one great aria for each lead.  This is probably why the Met has rarely produced it over the years.

I also saw the Met's new production of Verdi's Il Trovatore.  This was a great production updated slightly to the early 1800's (although there was no reason to really do so).  It starred Sondra Radvanofsky, Dolora Zajick, Marcelo Alvarez and Dmitri Hvorostovsky.  Great music, great cast, great production and great conductor.  Who could ask for anything more?

On a sad travel note, while I flew on Midwest Air, there is really no more Midwest Air since they were bought out by Republic Airlines.  The seats are back to the industry standard cramped seats with minimal legroom.  The overhead bins are small and everyone is trying to cram them full to avoid paying $15 for a checked bag.  Even the highly touted chocolate chip cookies are inferior to what Midwest offered.  This is really sad because a flight on the old Midwest was something that was enjoyed.  Now it is something to be endured.  Well, at least the plane landed on the runway and not the Hudson River.  

By Lee Goodman

Classical Contributor (Past writer)

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