Friday, November 6, 2015.
Ramos Gin Fiz, Wizard Of Ozz.
I'm happy to see that Mary Ann has taken a shine to orchestral music. We never attended such events until a few months ago, when we began going to the opera, LPO concerts large and small, and--can I count this?--the NPAS concerts.
Tonight, we show up for an evening of music in the LPO's new (restored, really) home, the Orpheum Theater. It's the first time I've set foot in that grand hall in decades. It's almost a miracle that it recovered first from neglect then from Katrina. But there it is, with superb acoustics and grandiosity from another era.
Everybody old enough to do so can recall great moments at the Orpheum. Mine was in July of 1963, when I took a day off from the Time Saver and treated myself with my own money to a day on the town. I took the Kenner bus to Carrollton and Claiborne, transferred to the St. Charles Streetcar, then found myself in late morning on Canal Street. I was twelve years old and by myself.
What was a young guy like me to do on Canal Street? A little shopping. This was the era not only of Maison Blanche and D.H. Holmes, but also Godchaux's, Porter's, Stephen's (this was before it became Porter & Stephen's), Woolworth's, and the K&B soda fountain. I didn't buy anything, but the experience was fun.
Then I went to the Orpheum's first movie showing of the day--at 11 a.m. The movie was unforgettable: "Robin And The Seven Hoods," starring the entire Rat Pack in its prime: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis Jr., and (!) Peter Falk. This is the movie that ends with Sinatra's singing "My Kind Of Town." (It was set in Chicago.)
I'd be lying if I said that our visit to the renewed Orpheum tonight brought a flood of memories. I knew the place was enormous, but I didn't recall any specifics. The performance, however, was thoroughly nostalgic. It was the original movie of "The Wizard Of Oz." Like anyone my age, I can speak practically the whole script from memory. But it's been many years since the last time I watched it.
This showing was something else. The full forces of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra sat under the screen and played all of the music in the movie live. Through some digital miracle, the music was removed from the sound track, while the spoken lines remained as they were. Fascinating--although the Marys and I agreed that after a short while we forgot the major orchestra down there playing all the songs and incidental music.
During the intermission was a costume contest. The participants made themselves up as characters in the movie. All of the costumes were remarkably well done, but the clear winner was a little girl arrayed as Glinda, The Good Witch Of The North. Cute!
Before the show, I met up with the Marys at Le Foret, which is under consideration as a venue for Mary Leigh's wedding next September. Of course, I may as well not have been there at all, for all the opinions I was allowed to give.
Our eating plan was to sup at Domenica. But everybody going to see Oz seemed to have the same idea. Hour and a half wait for a table. We were able to get a seat in the Fountain Lounge--the space that once was the Sazerac Restaurant. (Before that, it was the Fountain Lounge for the first time.) They had a pre-theater menu of three courses for $45, but MA shot that idea down, saying there was only time for one course. Which for me was a dozen grilled oysters, with far too much of the wrong kind of cheese, grilled too hard for the oysters to come out of the ordeal with any substance. The girls had salads. We were really just killing time until Judy Garland showed up for her career-making song.
My trivium with which I amazed and delighted people I knew at the theater concerns the Munchkins. They were played by the Singer Midgets, a crew of dancers, singers, and actors, all of whom were either midgets or dwarfs. (But not children.) They played on the vaudeville circuit for many years. One of the theaters the Singer Midgets visited regularly from the 1920s into the 1940s was the Orpheum. What irony!
Yet, neither of the Marys found this especially interesting.
Fountain Lounge. CBD: 123 Baronne, Roosevelt Hotel. 504-648-1200.
I'd be lying if I said that our visit to the renewed Orpheum tonight brought a flood of memories. I knew the place was enormous, but I didn't recall any specifics. The performance, however, was thoroughly nostalgic. It was the original movie of "The Wizard Of Oz." Like anyone my age, I can speak practically the whole script from memory. But it's been many years since the last time I watched it.
This showing was something else. The full forces of the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra sat under the screen and played all of the music in the movie live. Through some digital miracle, the music was removed from the sound track, while the spoken lines remained as they were. Fascinating--although the Marys and I agreed that after a short while we forgot the major orchestra down there playing all the songs and incidental music.
During the intermission was a costume contest. The participants made themselves up as characters in the movie. All of the costumes were remarkably well done, but the clear winner was a little girl arrayed as Glinda, The Good Witch Of The North. Cute!
Before the show, I met up with the Marys at Le Foret, which is under consideration as a venue for Mary Leigh's wedding next September. Of course, I may as well not have been there at all, for all the opinions I was allowed to give.
Our eating plan was to sup at Domenica. But everybody going to see Oz seemed to have the same idea. Hour and a half wait for a table. We were able to get a seat in the Fountain Lounge--the space that once was the Sazerac Restaurant. (Before that, it was the Fountain Lounge for the first time.) They had a pre-theater menu of three courses for $45, but MA shot that idea down, saying there was only time for one course. Which for me was a dozen grilled oysters, with far too much of the wrong kind of cheese, grilled too hard for the oysters to come out of the ordeal with any substance. The girls had salads. We were really just killing time until Judy Garland showed up for her career-making song.
My trivium with which I amazed and delighted people I knew at the theater concerns the Munchkins. They were played by the Singer Midgets, a crew of dancers, singers, and actors, all of whom were either midgets or dwarfs. (But not children.) They played on the vaudeville circuit for many years. One of the theaters the Singer Midgets visited regularly from the 1920s into the 1940s was the Orpheum. What irony!
Yet, neither of the Marys found this especially interesting.
