As I write, it’s nearly three weeks before the National Symphony Orchestra celebrates the 50th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s hop onto the surface of the moon. And they are already slashing ticket prices, even though Pharrell Williams is on the bill.
Not a good sign.
The hope seems to be that those unwilling to pay $109 to $119 for this “momentous concert event” will change their minds once they learn the damage will only be $79 to $89.
People serious about their classical music have long complained about the intrusion of pop concerts into the sanctum sanctorum of the concert hall. But even if you’re enthusiastic about an evening devoted to, say, video game music — yes, mighty symphony orchestras are now regularly put to use playing the themes from Super Mario — at least video games do provide a unified, coherent concert theme.
Space is tougher. How many times are you going to put together a concert of selections from Star Wars, Gustav Holst’s “The Planets,” and “The Blue Danube Waltz”? Although, with the recent biopic revival of Queen, maybe now’s the time for dusting off the long-forgotten, and mercifully so, “Flash Gordon” soundtrack.
The greatest space scenes on film are quiet and music-free. There are the sequences in 2001: A Space Odyssey, not with the Strauss soundtrack but just with the labored breathing of the one astronaut the HAL 9000 has yet to kill.
HAL: Look Dave, I can see you’re really upset about this.
Dave: Whoosh, whoosh.
HAL: I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.
Dave: Whoosh, whoosh. Whoosh, whoosh.
You could try to recreate the effect by having the tuba player breathe heavily through his horn, but it just wouldn’t be the same.
And then there is the first moonwalk itself, the object of the celebratory concert. There was no heroic music surging as Neil Armstrong stood on the little ladder, just silence broken by careful conversation with the sound quality of walkie-talkies.
So, what is likely to be presented on the Kennedy Center stage then? Brit-pop singer Natasha Bedingfield is on the boards. We don’t know what she’ll sing with the National Symphony, but I’m rooting for her 2007 single, “I Wanna Have Your Babies in Outer Space.” Okay, I made up the “in Outer Space” part — I’m just trying to help.
An actor from The Walking Dead will be on stage, unless there’s some other performer out there named Jon Bernthal, as will the author of a book on the moon landing, and a director who made a documentary on the same subject. LeVar Burton will be there too because he played a spaceman on Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Neil Armstrong’s son Mark will be on hand. Perhaps he will perform “Fly Me to the Moon.”
There will also be “special pre-taped performances and greetings from such luminaries as Elton John and Stephen Colbert.” Plus a video of the late David Bowie singing “Space Oddity” when he was 50. The only thing that would make it more morbid would be someone impersonating Michael Jackson doing the “moon walk.” But never fear, the governor of Virginia is not on the bill.
In other words, the 50th anniversary of making it to the moon is going to be celebrated with an unholy mess of a show, a convoluted grab bag of talent. Yes, the National Symphony Orchestra will get to premiere a work by a composer who has penned music for a recent Star Wars movie, but otherwise, much of the stage time of a fine symphony orchestra will be wasted as a videotaped rendition of “Rocketman” plays on a screen over their heads.
Don’t waste the orchestra’s time, and don’t waste ours either.
Eric Felten is the James Beard Award-winning author of How’s Your Drink?
