17 June 2008: Concert Tickets

So, Karis was telling me about this piano concert that her host mother is taking her to. She said that if I were interested, I could find tickets for really cheap at the concert hall box office. She showed me a calendar of events at the hall, and pointed out which concert she was planning to go to. Looks like it’s going to be Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” which I love (really, if you haven’t heard “The Great Gates at Kiev,” it’s a tear-jerker) and Rachmaninoff’s eighth romance for piano. I’m not quite sure I know what that is, so it will be fun to find out!

Looking at the schedule of events, I noticed that the philharmonic would be playing a concert of Mendelssohn (always fun), Grieg’s piano concerto in A minor (Grieg’s also great), and Dvorak’s “Symphony from the New World” (downright awesome). I knew I had to check out prices for this, so I kept it in mind to ask when I went down to the box office.

Well, after classes, it turned out that I wasn’t the only one going down to the box office. I’d say about a dozen people are planning on attending this concert. I don’t know how many of them really know what they’re going to see (one girl asked whether it was experimental music), but more exposure to classical music is always good. I’d say they’re in for a treat.

When we got to the box office, it turned out that the student price for the tickets we ended up purchasing was 100 rubles, or four dollars. Four dollars! Can you imagine? After everyone had bought their tickets, I went up and asked the [very sweet old] ticket agent woman how much for the concert featuring Dvorak and the rest. She said that there were three ticket prices: 100 rubles ($4), 300 rubles ($12), and 400 rubles ($16). I’ll be going back tomorrow to pick up that ticket up, since I was stupid and didn’t bring enough money today.

There was a very pleasant surprise waiting in the box office. Off to the side, there’s the “Chocolate Café” featuring beautiful creations of chocolate, mousse, fruit, and other tempting things; and a gift shop. Inside the gift shop, there was a bass quartet and a soprano giving a little cabaret performance. It was really fun to just happen upon that. Hooray for video! Check it out. (Sorry it got a little shaky in the first one; I was trying to figure out how to zoom in, but I found out you can’t zoom while filming.)





After buying the tickets, we went for a little stroll. This is our friend, Pushkin. This statue stands in front of the main entrance to the Russian museum, right next to the concert hall, and is usually covered with pigeons. Today, Pushkin has traded his pigeon hat for a pigeon parrot, and a pigeon glove.









The Mikhailovsky Palace, these days the Russian Museum. This is the Northern facade.















Our stroll took us to the Summer Gardens again. This is Ceres.














As you can see, it was a lovely day.