Don Satz replies to me:

>>However, here in New Orleans - classical music backwater -...
>
>Hey, I like New Orleans.

Wish I could say the same.  I merely live here.  Let me give you one
example:  the symphony held a fundraiser.  One thing New Orleanians love
and know how to throw is a party.  Anyway, this woman was leaving the
fundraiser, and she said, "What a marvelous time!  What's a symphony?"

New Orleans has always been an opera town, however (how much longer this
will continue is anybody's guess, since there seems to be some financial
flim-flam going on with the main company).  If you don't mind hearing La
Boheme every year, I'm told the opera season is decent (I went to one and
decided Never Again in this city - all the stuff opera aficionados love,
including meaningless vocalism and no drama).  Semi-amateur opera is well
in the suburbs, even.  Just walked out of a pretty credible job on Carlisle
Floyd's Susanna.  It wasn't the fault of the production.  DeNiro would have
had problems with that embarrassingly dated libretto, and the music is
pretty bland as well.  I don't really understand how native Southerners
could have sat in their seats enduring such lame stereotypes of their
native ground.

>We left the hotel, got in the cab, and I told the driver the right name.
>He nodded, moved away from hotel curb, and essentially turned to the other
>side of the street and stopped.  I said, "everything okay?" He said,
>"You're here." The right place was across the street from the hotel.
>Steve, you must know these two buildings.

Let me guess: The Fairmont Hotel and the Orpheum Theater?

Steve Schwartz