Quick Hits

1. At the Met Saturday night, the most moving scene I've yet witnessed in opera. Orfeo ed Euridice, a black set, its front obscuring the staircase as Orfeo leads Euridice up from the underworld, the stage nearly dark but for the spotlight on the couple as Euridice slows their ascent to beg Orfeo to look at her. She cannot understand his distance and he, because of his promise to Amor, cannot tell her why he will not look. Stephanie Blythe, all in black for her pants role, her physical size conveying Orfeo's stymied power, sings Euridice to climb. She, Danielle de Niese, the perfect complement all in white, sings confused, lost and in love. In the duet aria, Blythe breaks Euridice's heart by not looking, breaks Orfeo's heart by not looking, and -- unable to endure the pain -- breaks the audience's heart when he looks and Euridice dies again. If de Niese did not sing so well, Blythe's tragic mezzo glory would not have been nearly so powerful. But she did, and I just wish my mind had been a DVD to etch it all for the rest of my life, replayable at any moment.

2. It's NYC on a Sunday morning, warming up after frigid days, it's Central Park West, I'm standing at a CP entrance, counting visitors with a Conservancy-provided clicker. A clanging fills the air -- it sounds like a bargain basement church bell, or an all-clear after an office fire drill. Two minutes later it sounds again, another two minutes, again. I have no idea, until walking down to the next entrance for the next count, I pass a 50s GMC pickup, customized with a cab on the truckbed and "since 1941", the sign on the side of the truck informs me, a cutlery sharpener is calling to potential customers. I see the whetstone behind the cab's windows. I see two men inside, one calling to a coop doorman, obviously acquaintances from his rounds. Multi-million dollar coops and a peddler, and since it's "since 1941" presumably a successful one, side by side. I can't even remember the last time I saw a knife sharpener plying his trade, probably my small Peace Corps town nearly 40 years ago.