Last night my wife and I attended the Chicago Studio of Professional Singing’s annual Opera Gala and had a wonderful time. The CSPS is directed by our friend and long-term Lyric Opera seating companion Janice Pantazelos.
For two hours we were treated to many of our favorite operatic arias performed by Janice’s students. All were competent and several were of high professional caliber. It was a lovely evening.
Why don’t people take greater advantage of the cultural resources that are readily available at very reasonable cost? Any number of reasons come to mind: laziness, lack of awareness, and the “designer jeans phenomenon”—people don’t have confidence in their own ability to distinguish what they’ll like from what they won’t.
It’s as Auntie Mame said, life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death.
Glad the event turned out to be such a success!! I agree with you entirely about taking advantage of cultural resources that are available. I have begun to realize that I enjoy more the small venue / homegrown variety of culture (and it’s cheaper to boot.) Community theater, with someone you know putting themselves out there just for the love of it, and really delivering an amazing performance for an amateur … Even if it wasn’t perfect, you have to have to give them a lot of credit for the guts that it took to do it. A concert at a local church — the choir members are just plain old parishioners, and one of them has a lyric soprano voice that floats and soars with beauty and emotion, that brings the audience to tears. That kind of experience turns your whole concept of human potential and experiencing art and creativity upside down.