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10/31/2003 Archived Entry: "New York City Opera at the Lincoln Center"

One of the charter coach driver's favorite perks -- the "extra ticket." I drove last evening for a very nice school group going to New York City for the evening to see "Carmen," the French opera playing at the New York City Opera at the Lincon Center. As luck would have it, they had one extra ticket, and I found a parking space on 62nd Street right by the theater! I had never seen Carmen, so it was a real treat for me. Even though it was in French and I understood almost none of the words, it was subtitled in English over the stage so I was able to follow the plot with no problem.

The New York City Opera is the building on the left in the photo; you can see a bit of the NY Metropolitan Opera building at the right edge of the photo. I enjoy photographing buildings at night like this, and usually carry a small tripod on the coach just for this purpose. Moments after I took this photo, a Lincoln Center security guard came over to me to inform me it was fine to take photographs outdoors, but I was not allowed to use a tripod on Lincoln Center grounds unless I had a permit! I couldn't believe it ... there were very few people around me, tons of open space -- but someone might "trip" or get hurt on my tripod, so its use is banned. Ridiculous, but I complied -- anyway, I already had a dozen or so photos by this point, so I took the tripod back to the coach. Insurance is our friend -- right?!

Oh, and what's really kinda funny about this -- photos during the performance, of course, are strictly prohibited -- that's standard for almost any professional performance these days, and pretty much accepted (copyright regulations). But just to my left, a lady in the first row of the balcony not only took photos, but used a flash (which wouldn't have done any good at the distance we were from the stage, but nonetheless was rather distracting to all), and no one stopped her -- she took several flash photos during the opera! Go figure.