The Wallace Foundation Supports Creative Ways to Expand the Taste for Classical Music in NYC Eateries
On a freezing night in December, a bundled-up young crowd filed onto benches in Mast Chocolate's factory at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. They drank wine and ate candy while a 32-piece orchestra sounded the opening notes of Verdi's "Macbeth," presented by the three-year-old LoftOpera.
Though the mood was relaxed - toppled beer bottles clanged and a DJ played during intermissions - the actors were no amateurs. As the tragedy unfolded, leads Craig Irvin and Elizabeth Baldwin, their resonant voices hanging in the cavernous industrial space, commanded the sparse, rocky set. It wasn't long before the striking location receded behind the vivid production.
In New York, high art thrives far from Lincoln Center in similarly offbeat locales. Across the city, chamber groups perform in restaurants and pianists give parlor concerts, drawing the fresh-faced audiences that concert halls covet. A tour of these shows creates the impression that classical music, often derided as near death, is thriving...