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Friday February 23, 2001
"I'll put on my jammies and slippers and take a sandwich and stay to the end." Beverly Sills , Quoted in The New Yorker, Talk of the Town about sitting through Manon
Guggenheim
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Central Park with snow We lounge around until around eleven and then head over to Tavern on the Green. They don't open until noon. When will we learn about weekday lunches in New York? At home, places open at 11:30. We walk along and around the park picking our way among snow and slush, taking a couple of pictures. Kids enjoy playing in the stuff. The rococo room where we get a table at Tavern on the Green is unbelievable, especially with the snowy park outside the glass walls. A business associate from long ago whom I recently located on e-mail joins us. He says, "I moved to Manhattan the day before taking my first real job." I express my fondness for New York. He says it is rougher to live in than to visit. I imagine. At the next table, a man and four women who look like worn versions of heroin-chic models are drinking and toasting white Zinfandel. Another strike against the New York sophisticate image. There is a movie crew doing something both inside and outside the restaurant. That's cool. We don't try to find out what they are filming. We have a very good meal and bid our guest goodbye. A cab whisks us to the Guggenheim. We take a quick trip through Picassos and other famous painters and also view the models for the proposed new Guggenheim. Another cab whisks us back to the hotel to rest a bit. We don't dress up so much for the opera. Forrest wears a black suit with his tie and yellow sweater and I wear all black...suit and cotton/silk sweater. We have reserved a table at Gabriel's (11 W. 60th for those planning their own tour). They have a stunning Italian menu and we enjoy ourselves enormously and have plenty of time to go over to the theater and go to the shop, restrooms, etc. before the performance. La Traviata. Young man and wordly woman enjoy brief true love until father intervenes. (That happened in Manon, too.) Everything falls apart for everyone until they make up just before the soprano dies of comsumption (aka TB). The music is lovely and the sets are incredible. The soprano sings her heart out then dies.
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