OK, it wasn't young men playing rugby on a muddy field.
It was aging operaphiles lined up at Balexert, waiting for the guichets to open up at 9 a.m., vying for tickets. They'd begun waiting as of 6:30 a.m. Not Paleo, not Carnegie Hall for Horowitz, not the real Met for Maria Callas.
This was for 2011-2012 season tickets to the Met Live in HD in Balexert's largest theater, complete with red velvet armchairs.
Some people were in friendly clumps, hovering over coffee cups and thermoses, seated on folding chairs or tables and chairs salvaged from the café or waiting hall. Early birds, very proud of the early rising enterprise. And later birds, not as proud, who arrived after 7:23 am. After the five ticket counters had been open for over an hour, it became clear that tickets were selling out fast. The culture-vultures were getting restive.
They began grousing at people they saw passing them, people arriving simultaneously elbowed each other frostily, octagenarians almost came to blows, waving canes, shoving walkers........well not quite, but it was a psychological scrum. The Metropolitan was all the rage.
Disgruntled, and then disillusioned. Nothing but front row seats---the kind that have you craning your neck up at a huge picture on a huge screen in High Definition and you still can't see---and then nothing at all.
I was lucky: thanks to my heroic friend Roseanne and her friend seated for hours up front, who bought the tickets for me, I got four seats in a good row. But Alla and Gaby walked off empty-handed. The scrum disbanded and a sad crowd hobbled away.
