COLUMN: Symphony still sizzling at the PAC

Maybe I will get over it, but at the Francis Marion University Performing Arts Center I still feel like just being in that theater is worth an admission price.

Last weekend was an interesting musical period for me. On Monday, I heard the Florence Symphony’s Valentine concert, a couple of days after viewing nearly six hours of “Gotterdammerung” on the Metropolitan Opera’s HD series at the Swamp Fox Cinemas.

The FSO program included Tchiakovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture and Moussorgsky’s Love Music from Boris Godunov, influenced, no doubt, by the concert being on the night before Valentine’s Day.

I do not claim to be a judge of orchestral sound, but my belief that the FSO sounds better in the PAC than the civic center is encouraged by comments from other audience members. It simply sounds better in its new home. I hasten to add it always sounded good. But then the New York Phil would also sound better at the PAC than the Florence Civic Center, too.

At the HD presentation from the Met Saturday, I saw the fourth and final installment in Wagner’s Ring Cycle, giving me a little feeling of accomplishment. I saw the other three in the Met’s series, and that’s a lot of music, probably close to 20 hours altogether.

My musical weekend was somewhat marred by the Grammys. It was overshadowed by the untimely Whitney Houston death, but I was struck by a remark early in the ceremony that she could just stand there and sing and win the audience, like Sinatra and Crosby and the old-time pop singers. Yep. She could.

What marred the Grammys before I changed the channel were screaming, gyrations, outlandish costumes and blinding, flashing lights seen now with pop singers. You’re right; I’m old.

It really was nice to see the Symphony’s nearly full house (it was an official sell out, but there were a few seats here and there). It also would be nice to see big houses for other events. This brings to mind another recent FMU PAC event, the “100 Years of Broadway” show. It had a decent audience, but also many vacant seats.

That touring show had Neil Berg as master of ceremonies and pianist of a small band backing five singers. The singers had Broadway and Off-Broadway experience, having been cast members of some of the biggest musical hits. Berg wrote an Off-Broadway hit and is working on a Broadway-bound musical adaptation of “Grumpy Old Men.” Good idea.

I looked over Playbills from New York visits and found that we saw Sandra Joseph and Chuck Wagner, two of the singers here that night. We saw her play Christine, one of the leads in “Phantom of the Opera” and Wagner was Rapunzel’s Prince in “Into the Woods.” This was not a company of beginners.

Like most visitors, Berg had praise for the PAC building. He said it was possibly the most beautiful theater they have played in years of touring and said he hopes to be back next year.

I hope so. They put on a very good show. But whether they and other groups touring Broadway shows will play here depends on what kind of audiences they draw.

Let’s hope more people will attend touring shows. It would be really sad if we wind up with this beautiful theater but lack the audience to properly enjoy it. It costs much less to see those things here than in major cities.

Same for the HD opera series at the movie house. Audiences are small so far, but let’s hope they will be large enough for showings to continue. Live performances from the Met certainly are worth a little higher price than a movie.

Balky TV or censors?

TV channel surfing the other day, I tuned to MSNBC. The picture popped up, Chris Matthews said a word or two. Then it went silent.

I fiddled with the remote, but the sound would not return. On other channels the sound worked.

Could this be a plot to silence the one network that right wingers can accurately call biased?

So I tuned in Fox News. It also went silent while neighboring channels had sound, as did CNN, the most neutral news network.

I wonder: could it be that this particular TV is just tired of hearing all that political … uhmm…er... stuff?

 Thom Anderson is the former editor of the Morning News. Contact him THIDBIT@aol.com.