It’s hard for me to be in crowded places without considering the possibility that something bad could happen. Generally speaking this awareness doesn’t translate into actual fear. But it’s like knowing the person who hasn’t told you they got in could be dead: unlikely, but not impossible.
So sitting up in the very highest balcony the Metropolitan Opera has to offer I do find myself thinking, not only, what if a bomb went off, but also, what if I somehow fell off this balcony. The former is not helped by the security theater outside the Met and the latter is not helped by my shoes. I also find myself wondering, a little, what would even be served symbolically by bombing an opera house, since opera occupies such an odd cultural place right now. Be that as it may. Thus far I have not fallen out.
Anyway, I’m now halfway through the Ring Cycle, which is what got me to venture up into the balconies in the first place. I don’t know if I really like the Met’s staging, which basically features …
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