Big Night, Part II

So, we didn't spend the ENTIRE night just thinking about our little peanut. We found ourselves completely enchanted by the Brahms concerto and symphony. Of course, we both sat there thinking about how much fun it will be to bring Gabby to the symphony and teach her about music, but we devoted, oh, at least 30% of our (shared) brain to actually enjoying the music.

There are definite cultural differences among the lively arts in our town. Ballet patrons tend to be fashionable, good looking, aware of themselves and their space. Many of them look like they might be former dancers. Either that, or they're just really well preserved and have fabulous personal trainers.

The folks who attend the opera always make me feel schlumphy, impoverished, and under dressed. They dress UP. Like they mean it. It is the opera, after all.

And then there's the symphony -- aaah, the symphony.

Symphony patrons seem to skew a bit older, or maybe they're just not as good at hiding it. At any given performance, you'll see a parade of corduroy and tweed blazers with elbow patches, many adorned with a slight sprinkling of dandruff about the collar. There are also a fair number of urban hipsters and young professionals, but they all look as if they'd be equally comfortable at a sci-fi convention.

In short, they are nerds. They are folks in touch with their inner geek.

They are our kind of people.

It's not just our fellow audience members that make us feel comfortable, it's the performers themselves. I can look at a ballerina with great admiration, wondering at how on earth she gets her impossibly long legs up behind her back and parallel with her neck, but I couldn't imagine ever actually talking to one.

And opera singers seem to be of a different species -- an extremely theatrical race of divas who never ever experience humdrum emotions such as mild surprise or simple contentment.

But symphony musicians? God love 'em. They look like your next door neighbor, dressed up for a family wedding. Or maybe that guy with the schnauzer you see in the coffee shop all the time. Or the woman in the next cubicle. It makes it all the more amazing that they create such magic. And that they're so interesting to watch, despite the lack of costumes, stage makeup, or body contortions (well, other than the occasional grimace from a soloist).

Hmm. Why do I have the sinking feeling that Gabby will likely torture us from the age of 7 on by refusing to listen to anything but her generation's version of Hannah Montana?