Osler's Razor

A very long time ago, when I was in law school, I found something overwhelming and beautiful. I’m not sure how this happened, but I was in New York and bought cheap seats to see the opera at the Met, and was stunned and addicted.

A few weeks later, I went back again, taking the train into the city by myself from New Haven, and then returning at one a.m., still reliving what I had seen. I bought a subscription which included Wagner’s Ring cycle, and I became a regular. The only seats I could afford were the cheapest ones of all ($10-15 at the time) in the fourth balcony, which is labeled the “family circle.” There weren’t many families up there, just people of moderate means who truly loved opera. To my left were old women who carefully carried fading librettos like they were babies, and to my right were two men who worked in lifeless cubicles in Manhattan paperwork farms. I fit in; I was a student sneaking off, my backpack jammed with books to read on the train home. Say what you will about the family circle, but it was like a church—people up there had a careful focus, the reverence of the widow and her pennies.

One night I was up there, watching Rigolletto or Carmen or some other classic for the first time. The bells were chiming (that the curtain would soon go up), and a couple came into the seats a few rows ahead of me. He was older, perhaps my age now, and she was younger, tall and striking. She took off her fur coat, but didn’t sit down. Instead she turned to him and complained.

“Really? This is the best you could do? You couldn’t hit the stage with a baseball from here. These are the worst seats in the house.”

The man stood back up and tried to talk to her quietly (I think he knew what was going to happen). I was close enough to hear: he was telling her that the side boxes had obstructed views, and though they look fancy, they are not as good to see and hear the opera from.

This didn’t help. She demanded that he get them better seats.

The man next to me joined in. “You really should get her a seat downstairs. This is just an awful place up here.”

“Terrible, terrible. All the riff-raff are here,” an old lady offered. “Criminals and codgers.”

The partner of the first guy: “I hate myself for even being here. It’s a disgrace!.” Another woman and her husband went next, and then people started to laugh.

The tall, striking woman was not stupid. She and the man both knew exactly what was happening. They conferred briefly and left, and the others clapped and yelled “bravo!” and “wise choice!” as they slipped out. She had pursed lips, and beautiful shoes.

Then we tucked in our things, leaned forward, and breathed in anxiously with the first notes of the score, lost in it, again.