On
Friday afternoons, during the season, Orchestra Hall,
situate on Michigan Boulevard, holds more pretty girls and
fewer men than one might expect to see at any one gathering
other than, perhaps, a wholesale debutante tea crush. A
Friday afternoon ticket is as impossible of attainment for
one not a subscriber as a seat in heaven for a sinner.
Saturday night's audience is staider, more masculine, less
staccato. Gallery, balcony, parquet, it represents the
city's best. Its men prefer Beethoven to Berlin. Its women
could wear pearl necklaces, and don't. Between the audience
and the solemn black-and-white rows on the platform there
exists an entente cordiale. The Konzert-Meister bows to
his friend in the third row, as he tucks his violin under
his chin. The fifth row, aisle, smiles and nods to the
sausage-fingered 'cellist.
"Fritz is playing well to-night."
In a rarefied form, it is the atmosphere that existed
between audience and players in the days of the old and
famous Daly stock company.
Such was the character of the audience Theodore was to face
on his first appearance in America.
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