Vienna Boys Choir

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As I’ve mentioned at least twice, we have company this weekend. We like to do things that the visitors would enjoy whenever possible. Sometimes, we have to guess. Other times, we get lucky and get specific requests.

Yesterday was one of the lucky times. A few weeks in advance, they let us know that they would love to see the Vienna Boys Choir at Carnegie Hall. The show was listed on the Carnegie Hall site, but the tickets were not yet on sale.

Amazingly, calling the box office yielded no further information. They had no idea when the tickets would go on sale. How can that possibly be?

Anyway, I checked every single day. Roughly a week later, the tickets were finally available online. We got five tickets in the Parquet (which is like the first mezzanine). Each entrance has a private coat closet and eight seats. We were slightly to the left of center stage, and everything about the seats was excellent (location, comfort, etc.).

There were 24 boys on stage, plus one adult choirmaster who also accompanied the boys on a grand piano. The boys sing beautifully, no doubt. That said, since they all sing in alto ranges, whenever they were accompanied by the piano (he was a superb pianist!), they were somewhat drowned out.

Thankfully, roughly half of the performance was a cappella, and they truly amazed when performing without the piano.

The performance was split into two sets. Before the intermission, there was a slant toward more operatic style music. Some of the selection didn’t seem to match their skills. The second set was heavily oriented toward Christmas Carols (multiple languages), and all were delightful. The carols connected deeply with the audience, and you could viscerally feel the reaction after each one.

All-in-all, a very delightful afternoon doing something we would likely not have thought to do were it not for the suggestion of our friends.

Thanks! 🙂