I was watching one of those boring public television channels today and they were talking about live theater, but of course my mind went to classical music and operas. I miss these live performances very much. Apart from being beautiful, amazing, life-changing, awesome, incredible…<continue with hyperboles and superlatives here>, it is truly magical when you think of all the components coming into place at precisely the right moment. I have the word “magical” because I feel that thanks to Disney (which I love), the word has been overused way too much. I want to describe it as clockwork, but again I feel that is too cliche. In other words…I’m at a loss for words. Suffice it to say that during a live performance in classical music and opera, you are experiencing the fruiting of skill and talent that has taken years to perfect by each individual involved and a lot of practice by the collective to make sure that was is happing live occurs with precision and accuracy that is nothing less than perfect. It’s not like modern pop music that is prerecorded and only the choreography is occurring live: and even that is obscured by the constant distraction of the light shows and obnoxiously loud music. It’s not like cinema or television where you piece together the final work from countless takes and retakes. In live performances, there is no room for error and none of the sounds is applied. Just the sweet sound of pure and raw music. I can’t even imagine what it will feel like to finally be back in the concert hall or opera house.