As I mentioned in the last post, I was thisclose to going to Hamilton to see their orchestra play Prokofiev's 2nd Violin Concerto. In the end, I decided not to. Though I wasn't too eager to be waiting on the bus after dark in downtown Hamilton, the single biggest reason was that their box office was unreachable and even in the FAQ they didn't indicate whether it was possible to buy tickets in person (to say nothing of rush tickets). Even if they had said something on the website like box office will be open one hour before the performance, I would have gone down, but I have made assumptions before about the way things work in smallish towns/cities only to be rudely disappointed. It actually is not completely impossible that the box office would be completely unstaffed, and there would just be ushers scanning tickets. I suppose I might have figured out how to buy a ticket on my phone, but that was way beyond what I wanted to deal with. At any rate, I had already spent enough money (and time) on entertainment for the day, so I went home and took a short catnap. I will keep my eyes open to see if that piece is playing in Toronto in the next couple of years, as I did want to hear it.
Now over at the Royal Conservatory, there have been several substitutions. Murray Perahia was supposed to play a concert on May 1. Then he had to cancel due to health reasons, and they found a substitute, Peter Serkin. RC apologized and they did offer a discount on a few upcoming events. (This seems a better approach than what Soulpepper did a couple of years ago where they actually switched out a play on subscribers. I was quite unhappy and insisted on a full refund instead; this was really the beginning of the end of my affections for this organization.) I was sort of sorting my way through this, as well as trying to get tickets to see Vivaldi's Four Seasons, when I got another update that Serkin was going to have to withdraw, also for health reasons, but that Perahia would be back on in 2020! I didn't see any mention of a discount this time around.
There are a couple of unfortunate things all going on here. First, Serkin was going to do Goldberg Variations, which actually appealed to me a bit more than Perahia's program. Second, due to all this futzing around and trying to make up my mind, the cheap seats for the Four Seasons were gone by the time I was actually ready to pull the trigger. Or rather, there was just a single cheap seat left in the back row, but nothing available for my wife and son. Interestingly, on the same week the TSO was going to be playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons, though the weekend event was up in North York. So in this case, it won't be all that hard to switch to some mid-week performance, but I just need to remember to call the box office on Monday.
As far as the RC shows, I decided I would go see Angela Hewitt doing Bach's Art of the Fugue. This should really be quite the event of the season, though there were a reasonable number of tickets left. It's scheduled for April 2020. Fingers crossed that her health keeps up!
I'm pretty sure that I saw she was going to be at the Toronto Summer Music Festival doing Goldberg Variations at the tail end of July. I haven't really entirely decided to whether to go. I've actually seen this twice, including once in Vancouver on harpsichord. However, it's also true that Hewitt is one of the leading Bach interpreters still working today. I wonder if my son would be interested in going, though to be honest, it may be just a bit too austere and demanding for him. I was going to have him come along to see Beethoven's 7th Symphony last week when the Hart House Orchestra was doing it, but he had a bit too much homework. I think I would have him come anyway if they had done Beethoven's 5th as originally planned. At any rate, at some point I am sure I'll take him along to see the 5th and the 7th (but maybe not the 9th, not sure about that one...). In fact, in a couple of weeks, the TSO is doing Beethoven's 5th, but the only seats are in the choir loft (so you see the orchestra sideways) and the performance would end quite late, so I think I'll have to pass. I'm sure there will be an appropriate afternoon concert one of these days.
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