Where have all
the flowers gone?
In the Nov. 1 Boston Globe, I read the bad (and sad) news that after 137 years, the New England Flower Show is canceling its large 2009 spring show. However, its sponsors hope to stage two smaller events in 2009.
The article says that the state risks losing millions in potential revenue as a result. In previous years the show has attracted more than 100,000 people from around the region.
The Massachusetts Horticulture Society, sponsor of the show, says the two smaller events remain in the planning phase.
The first, in March, would showcase plants and designs in the lobbies of several downtown hotels and office buildings. The second would exhibit plants, design and landscaping for the summer at Elm Bank Reservation in Wellesley.
Betsy Ridge Madsen of the Horticultural Society said, “I think it’s a little premature for sadness. It won’t be the same, but hopefully people will find it invigorating.”
Now the good news. The Nov. 14 Globe tells us that some resorts will offer discounts to keep skiers coming; a small headline says “With skiers and snowboarders strapped for cash this season, resorts are offering deals.”
“Everything is all doom and gloom with the economy,” said Bonnie MacPherson, spokeswoman for Okemp Mountain Resort in Vermont. “We’ve all been on pins and needles.”
But interest is strong after last year’s great ski season, and other factors are helping. Gas prices have fallen sharply since the summer, making travel more reasonable. Okemo reports a 17 percent increase in the sale of season passes compared with the same period last year.
“Skiers and riders are very resilient,” said Tom Horrocks, spokesman for Killington resort in Vermont. “Skiing and riding is a lifestyle. It’s what makes your identity. You’re a skier.”
But that doesn’t mean resort operators are overly confident. They are already promoting discounts to help draw crowds during the crucial holiday vacation period.
Here in Maine, at Sunday River in Bethel and Sugarloaf in Carrabassett Valley, skiers could have saved $75 on two-night packages if they booked by Saturday, and can trim $50 off bookings made by Dec. 15. New Hampshire’s Tenney Mountain is trying to lure locals and day-trippers with a $150 Sunday afternoon and non-holiday season pass.
Michael Berry, president of the national ski association, said, “I think it’s as simple as, people love to ski and snowboard. If it means a day of not thinking about what the stock market is doing, it’s an opportunity to create a memory with friends and family and relax and enjoy the day.”
Ozawa well-Met
I read, in a small Page 1 headline in my December copy of Opera News, “Seiji Ozawa Returns to the Met.” What does that mean, I wondered, as we know that he left the Boston Symphony Orchestra, after conducting there from 1973 to 2002. He then went on to become music director of the Vienna Austria State Opera; his contract there runs until 2010.
In reading the Opera News article, I found that he is returning to the Metropolitan Opera in New York as a guest conductor, after a 16-year absence, to conduct Tschaikowsky’s opera “The Queen of Spades,” a favorite of his. Performances are Dec. 3, 6, 10 and 13.
The Opera News tells his life story: Ozawa, now 73, was born in Manchuria, where his father was a dentist, and raised in Japan. His mother was a Presbyterian, and he and his three brothers were taught hymns at Sunday school.
Young Seiji was a piano prodigy. From the age of 6 or 7, he immersed himself in Bach, Beethoven and Mendelssohn, but his virtuoso career came to a halt in his teenage years, when he broke two fingers playing rugby. He switched to conducting and composition. Upon graduating with honors from Tokyo’s Toho Gakuen School of Music, the 24-year-old loaded his motorbike onto a freighter and headed for Europe.
His rise was swift. Within two years of his arrival on the Western music scene, he won a conducting prize at Tanglewood in Massachusetts, worked with Herbert von Karajan in West Berlin and came to the attention of Leonard Bernstein, who named him assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic.
Over the next decade, positions followed as music director of Chicago’s Ravinia Festival, the Toronto Symphony and the San Francisco Symphony. By 1973, he reached the capstone, the music directorship of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Sporting a Beatles haircut and Nehru jackets, the 38-year-old overwhelmed Boston’s hyper-traditional Symphony Hall scene. Beethoven, Brahms and Mendelssohn were out, and Schoenberg, Messiaen and Takemitsu were in. The front office advertised, “Put a little Ozawa in your life!”
No one expected him to stay in Boston for long. He guest-conducted throughout the world. Yet he was in Boston nearly 30 years, the longest tenure of a music director of a major American orchestra in recent times.
The article says, however, that the Boston players were growing restive, that Ozawa was out of town too often, and the situation grew intolerable. Ozawa resigned in 2002, and left for Vienna, where his contract runs until 2010.
Oldie but goodie
Today’s recipe is from “Potluck,” a cookbook compiled in 1947 by the Women’s Fellowship of the First Church, Congregational, in Cambridge, Mass.
Hot Milk Cake
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon butter
Beat eggs, add sugar, then add flour and baking powder sifted together. Heat milk and butter together and add last. Mix quickly and bake at once at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.
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