From the first note of Glinka's Ruslan and Ludmilla Overture to the last of Respighi's ever-popular Pines of Rome quartet, the grand re-opening of Robinson Center in Little Rock was an (almost) unqualified hit. Bravissimo and BOFFO! Peering down from the crow's nest of the good ship U.S.S. Arkansas, a celebrant could mistake the musicians far below for marionettes in a department-store Christmas window, for the performance stage has been dropped 36 feet.
But the music--ah, the music!--sounds up close and personal. As well it should after this old-new auditorium has been given a complete redo from the inside out. Yes, there are now some additional handrails, thank goodness, but they've been added in the modern, now post-modern, style that scarcely alters the whole imposing effect.
To quote Philip Mann, music director of the Arkansas Symphony, the orchestra was at the center of this whole renovation project from its inception. Which is just where it should have been. "It really gives a sense of a completely new hall on the inside," he said. "Any perceptions of what would be a quote renovation unquote will really be quickly dispelled. You walk up the steps and enjoy that wonderful historic lobby area, but from that point forward, you are really in a new space. The most important thing for me is that a hall is the orchestra's instrument. Any great musician needs a good instrument. For us, the hall really is the instrument that we play and it fills a really specific function for us."
Well said, and well played. And the applause at the end of the first movement of this old standby is well deserved. From high up in the peanut gallery, the musicians below may look distant, but there is nothing remote about the way they sound. There's nothing sotto voce about their uninhibited, all-American enthusiasm or excellence.
Alas, provisions for parking and for those who rely upon walkers and wheelchairs are just as bad, if not worse, than they were before this remake of Robinson, leaving the lame, halting and blind to fend for themselves. Apart from the new handrails, there is little to indicate that the architects and planners thought of the needs of the handicapped; there is no signage pointing to the location of the sole wheelchair access point, a neglected curb cut in the Doubletree's circular drive that leads to a cobwebby brick ramp that runs down into the side of the auditorium.
So it ever was and, one fears, ever will be despite this star turn by the old but ever-new character in this operatic drama: a born-again Robinson Center.
But the music--ah, the music! There's the zest of a fine orchestra turned loose to do its best. For example, there's the old-fashioned but always welcome sound of a Western hoedown. Yes, why can't the farmers and cowboys be friends? Much like today's suburbanites and inner-city dwellers. Have orchestra, will travel. Far and wide in Arkansas and points well beyond. There are the well-behaved young matrons seated next to their garrulous husbands. There are the icy stares directed at latecomers by the punctual. There are no officially declared safe spaces here, for this is no well-cushioned Ivy League campus where students' families fork over exorbitant sums so the kids can get an "education" in social protest and general rowdiness.
Instead, each concertgoer seems lost in a bubble of satisfaction all his or her own, yet sharing a statewide pride in this part of Arkansas' architectural, musical, historical, and communal heritage. From morning till evening, people come and go speaking and maybe humming a few bars of Figaro, Figaro! The place is flooded with memories of a shared past and hopes for a shared future. Each member of the audience seems afloat in his own universe, yet all are together as they depart thanks to the magic of music. No wonder the Talmud says that he who saves a single life, it is as though he'd saved a whole world. Surely the same applies to anyone who saves a storied old building given a new lease on life.
The comic highlight of this day waning into evening comes when Maestro Mann goes to open a stage door but can't. Something tells us the 21st century won't be any simpler mechanically than the 20th was. But that's not about to spoil the grand occasion. For this Stradivarius of auditoriums seems unruffled by the small stuff, all its audio-visual aids courteously turned off like people's iPhones. The real star of this production has been the auditorium itself as it makes still another debut in the state's history.
Editorial on 11/27/2016