Cheap Seats

If you’d like to hear Verdi’s Don Carlo at the Met this week you can get a seat for only $25. It’s two rows from the very last row, all the way at the top of the house in the Family Circle, but it’s pretty much center and it’s an aisle seat. There’s even a cheaper seat, also on the aisle but further stage right, for $20. Or you could get an excellent orchestra seat, also on the aisle, for $340! And no, that’s not the most expensive seat; that would be front row, center Parterre, at $440 for this performance.

If your tastes run to the Vienna Philharmonic, you could hear them at Carnegie Hall this weekend. The cheapest seats, at the top of the balcony, are all sold out; they went for $34. But there are great orchestra seats available for a mere $202.

Or maybe you’re a theatre lover and you’d like to hear the New York Philharmonic’s 100+ players rip though Rodger’s and Hammerstein’s Carousel. The most economical seats are available at a steep $95 in the third tier; orchestra seats will set you back $245.

Do you know what all the cheap seats in these three halls have in common? Aside from saving you some bucks, they offer the best sound you can get.

Don’t believe me? Well take a look at these two pictures. I shot these on my phone at Monday night’s Yale Percussion Group concert in Morse Recital Hall. This is a largely School of Music audience, so they know a thing or two about sound. The first shot is of the balcony; note that there are very few empty seats. The second photo is of the nearly deserted orchestra level. This was a free concert; people could sit wherever they wanted. This savvy crowd knew where the best sound was.

 It’s largely simple physics: acoustically, most halls’ sweet spot is up in the nosebleed section.

I was at a Met performance of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte several years ago and wasn’t liking it very much. I wanted to leave at intermission, but I also wanted to hear the famed Queen of the Night aria at the top of the second act.  (“Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen" – listen to it here). So I left my front row balcony seat, climbed all the way up to the highest spot in the house, Standing Room in the Family Circle, and listened. When her highness finished, I applauded and left quietly through the door at the top of the house. The aria was good; the sound was extraordinary.

And speaking of extraordinary, that percussion concert was exactly that. OMG! Bartók’s incredibly exciting Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion opened the concert, followed by two pieces from contemporary composers John Supko (b. 1980) and Alejandro Viñao (b. 1951). But the highlight was the absolutely astounding Cloud Polyphonies by James Wood, seen below taking his bow. It was 40 minutes of exotic, exquisite, sometime mind-blowing, always fascinating, occasionally too loud percussive music. Every instrument on that crowded stage was used in this contemporary masterpiece and the standing ovation was for once totally deserved. Alas, there is not a recording I can point you to but you can listen to the first movement here.