Tonight is my Metropolitan Opera debut. Well, it’s actually Eric‘s, but, you know, my have-a-client-at-the-Met debut.
Thoughts:
1. I love that there are Doctor Atomic events throughout the city surrounding the production. As they say, it takes a village (or an island, in this case) to promote new music.
2. I find that, even though I’ve seen them all on stage before, I get really excited every time I have the opportunity to see my clients perform. I know them, and there they are on stage! I wonder if that novelty will ever wear off; I hope not. As mentioned, jazz is not my “thing”, but after trekking out to Niagara Falls with Blackout members in-the-dead-of-Friday night, their performance on Saturday was all the more enjoyable. Obviously, not everyone in the audience tonight will have eaten dinner at Pomodoro (“P-Diddy’s”, as he calls it) with Eric Owens, but I see it as my job to make them feel like they have.
3. I need to write something about excitement at some point, that is, how far in advance you should start promoting something in order to get people excited without them losing interest by the time the recording/performance actually happens. Additionally, how much should you focus on getting certain communities excited (I can name about 30 people who are guaranteed to be on the proverbial scene tonight) versus getting the masses excited?
4. My Universal colleague Joseph Oerke brought the awesome, awesome Doctor Atomic rollover banner ads in the Entertainment section of New York Magazine dot com to my attention. Video, synopsis and photos all on the ad itself: the future of banner ads, in fact, as Alex Sturtevant has pointed out on this blog.
5. This is journalism at its best and very worth a read if you missed it three years ago.
Update, Tuesday 10/14, 11:47am – I am *furious* that I didn’t come up with this for the title of my Atomic post. Mark Adamo!! ((shakes fist))