Patrons are requested to silence cell phones and other electronic devices during performances.
The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in this venue.
Program
Simone Young, Conductor
Simone Lamsma, violin
Arvo Pärt (b. 1935)
Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976)
Concerto Violin and Orchestra, Op. 15
Moderato con moto
Vivace
Passacaglia: Andante lento (un poco meno mosso)
Simone Lamsma, violin
Intermission (15 mins.)
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 - 1975)
Symphony No. 10 in E Minor, Op. 93
Moderato
Allegro
Allegretto
Andante - Allegro
Program Notes
Arvo Pärt: Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten
Since he came of age in Estonia during the Soviet era, Arvo Pärt—among the most performed composers alive today—had to navigate the whims of Party cultural policy as a young artist. He had been drawn to music from an early age, but it took a long time for him to discover his true voice because of this external pressure. “Back then, I wasn’t in a position to find the path that might have led me toward what I was really looking for,” as Pärt once explained. During the early part of his career behind the Iron Curtain, he made his living as a radio engineer and composer of film scores.
Pärt caused a major scandal in 1968 with his choral-orchestral Credo. Along with aggressively Modernist techniques, it set the text “I believe in Jesus Christ”—a grave offense for the officially atheist government. This also marked the first time he set an openly sacred text. Pärt converted to Orthodox Christianity in 1972, during a lengthy period of reassessing his musical language, when he composed very little. He has devoted a significant part of his output to choral music on religious themes. The musical style and philosophy Pärt developed during those years of semi-retreat also found expression in such purely instrumental works as Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten, composed in 1977.
Pärt immersed himself in the West’s tradition of early music, going back to Gregorian chant. He painstakingly reinvented what he considered the essentials needed to create a composition. “I wanted to learn how to shape a melody, but I had no idea how to do it,” according to Pärt. “All that I had to go on was a book of Gregorian chant… When I began to sing and to play these melodies I had the feeling that I was being given a blood transfusion.”
Through this radical rethinking of the very essence of music—and of spirituality itself—Pärt invented a new system, technique, and style he termed tintinnabuli, from the Latin word for “little bells” and the sound of their ringing. (Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem incorporates the word: “To the tintinabulation that so musically wells/From the bells, bells, bells, bells…”)
Tintinnabuli encompasses a philosophy and theology and embodies Pärt’s quest for the One behind the Many: “The complex and many-faceted only confuses me, and I must search for unity,” as he puts it. “…Traces of this thing appear in many guises, and everything that is unimportant falls away.” The tintinnabuli system uses basic ingredients of melody (the scale) and harmony (the simple major or minor chord known as the triad).
Pärt was deeply moved by news in December 1976 of the death of the English composer Benjamin Britten, whose music he had discovered while developing his own ideas of a more austere and deeply communicative style. “I began to appreciate the unusual purity of [Britten’s] music,” he remarked, “and besides, for a long time I had wanted to meet Britten personally—and now it would not come to that.”
After a marked silence, the lone toll of a bell (campana) prefaces the theme of the canon: a simple descending scale comprising the white keys of the piano, while the bell periodically tolls on its single pitch of A. But this simplicity fans out into an emotionally gripping, complex tapestry of divided strings spelling out the theme at different speeds and in changing cycles. In the final moments, the strings come to rest on long-held notes of the A minor chord—the bell tolls above them one last time.
Benjamin Britten: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 15
It was during his American sojourn, which began on the eve of World War Two, that the 20-something prodigy composer Benjamin Britten made his first foray into opera (Paul Bunyan) and also conceived what would become his international breakthrough in that genre, Peter Grimes. He additionally completed the Violin Concerto during that final summer of tense, false peace in 1939—a period which Britten and his life partner, the tenor Peter Pears, spent visiting with such friends as Aaron Copland.
By his mid-20s, Britten was already a celebrated composer, producing a flood of new compositions that included a great deal of incidental music (scores for the stage and radio as well as film music), chamber pieces, song cycles, and his first ambitious works for full orchestra. He opened himself early on to key Modernist influences from the Continent. Britten developed a fascination with Mahler far ahead of his time and was keenly attuned to the innovations of Stravinsky and Schoenberg. In 1936, he discovered the music of Dmitri Shostakovich, whom he befriended in later years; he also heard the posthumous world premiere of Alban Berg’s elegiac Violin Concerto, which he found “just shattering.”
Britten wrote the Violin Concerto for the Spanish expatriate violinist Antonio Brosa, returning to the score several times in later decades to revise the solo part. The work’s darkly mournful qualities may reflect the larger political background of the Spanish Civil War, a staging ground for the impending conflict with Hitler and Mussolini. The defeat of the Republican cause by the Fascists occurred while Britten was composing the score. To his publisher he wrote that the concerto “is without question my best piece. It is rather serious, I’m afraid.” He confessed to a friend just a few weeks after world war broke out: “It is at times like these that work is so important—that humans can think of other things than blowing each other up!”
Not that the Violin Concerto is programmatic, readings along the lines of Shostakovich’s musically coded metaphors have been proposed.
The relative tempos of the three movements are unconventional: the middle one is fast and the final movement is the longest and also the gravitational center of the entire concerto. The work opens with an enigmatic motif of five notes on the timpani—a gesture that alludes to the opening of Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, but with an added splash of cymbals. Over this insistent rhythm, the soloist takes flight in a long melody, doleful and ambiguous. A more agitated section introduces another rhythmic motif and a new melody on the violin (including a variant of the opening motif’s rhythm). A short development leads back to the opening music, with Mahlerian brushstrokes on the harp. The coda is heartrendingly eloquent, subsiding into a sorrowful passage for the soloist against the insistent rhythms, and then the merest promise of resolution—more of resignation than of peace.
The Vivace that follows behaves like a scherzo, prefiguring the theme of the finale. A bizarre passage for tuba in dialogue with a pair of chattering piccolos presents a wonderful example of Britten’s brilliant orchestral imagination. An elaborate violin cadenza leads without pause to the finale, which unfolds as a theme and variations on the idea somberly played by trombones—inspired by the form of a Baroque passacaglia but treated with much greater freedom. The final variation develops into extended, dirge-like coda, as the soloist attempts to find a serene resolution for all that has come before: but these impassioned pleadings lead only to an ambiguous final chord.
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93
Dmitri Shostakovich’s oeuvre raises questions about what kinds of messages can be “encoded” by purely musical events. The Tenth Symphony is one of the key documents in this debate. Shostakovich had previously endured two attacks from Soviet authorities for writing allegedly “decadent” (i.e., not sufficiently accessible) music: first, in 1936 and then in 1948, even after he had risen to the stature of a cultural war hero during Hitler’s invasion of his homeland (thanks to the success of his Leningrad Symphony No. 7).
Shostakovich’s Eighth and Ninth Symphonies had by then also been premiered, but he introduced no more symphonies to the public until Stalin was out of the picture. The dictator’s death in 1953 cleared the atmosphere, at least to the extent that Shostakovich decided it was now safe to unveil his Symphony No. 10, which Yevgeny Mravinsky premiered with the Leningrad Philharmonic in December of that year. One of the Communist Party catchphrases trying to make ideological sense of its emotional tone pronounced the work “an optimistic tragedy.” Even today, the Tenth’s ambiguity remains as compelling as ever. For one thing, some scholars hold that Shostakovich had been working on it before Stalin died, which would call into question a widespread claim that the Tenth was intended as a kind of revenge portrayal of Stalin’s brutality. The biographer Laurel Fay writes that she found “no corroboration that such a specific program [the Scherzo as a portrait of Stalin] was either intended or perceived at the time of composition and first performance.” Yet the creation of this music during a period when the composer’s standing was especially precarious is a crucial fact. To what extent does it “explain” the tremendous power of this score?
The subdued beginning, low in the strings, opens onto a vast movement nearly the length of the final two movements combined. An air of uncertainty builds slowly. Contrasts between the full ensemble and solo passages characterize the first movement, which progresses towards a massive climax. But the uncertainty returns in a moving coda, with its hints of Mahler—one of the composer’s idols. (Like Britten, Shostakovich was an early adapter.) The savage, brief Scherzo is all brutal aggression. Furiously repeated rhythms suggest a terrifying, implacable chase.
Shostakovich works his musical signature into the fabric of the nocturnal third movement: his initials DSCH, according to the conventional German transliteration of notes, are spelled D – E-flat – C – B. The horn introduces another biographical idea that has been deciphered as an inscription of the name of one of Shostakovich’s students (the Azeri Elmira Nazirova), possibly a symbol of youth and hope. It recurs a dozen times. The final movement opens with slow music, but this eventually awakens into a headlong rush. Shostakovich’s signature motif returns, this time with aggressive accents. But is this “optimism”—or a “triumph” whose victory is in fact mocked? Can terror and angst really be so easily overcome? Shostakovich, like Britten, leaves us questioning.
Notes (c) 2021 Thomas May
Meet the Artists
Meet the Artists
Simone Young is considered one of the most important conductors of our time. After completing her musical studies in her native Sydney, Ms. Young began her career on the podium in Germany. This launched her international career, which has taken her to nearly all the most important opera houses and symphony orchestras around the world.
Ms. Young starts her position as Chief Conductor of the Sydney Symphony in autumn 2020. As a guest conductor this season she leads productions at the Berlin State Opera (Verdi Gala, Die Frau ohne Schatten, Der Rosenkavalier), the Vienna State Opera (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Das verratene Meer) and the Bavarian State Opera (Tannhäuser). Alongside her work in Sydney this season, Ms. Young will guest conduct such orchestras as the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, BBC Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lyon, Chicago Symphony, Orchestre Metropolitan de Montreal, DSO Berlin, and Orchestre National de France.
Ms. Young’s previous titled positions include: Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestre Chambre de Lausanne (2017-2020), Principal Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic (1998-2002); Artistic Director of Opera Australia (2001-2003); Principal Guest Conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon; Artistic Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Chief Music Director of the Hamburg Philharmonic (2005-2015).
During her tenure in Hamburg, Ms. Young dedicated herself nearly exclusively to that house, conducting numerous premieres and a diverse repertoire with performance of such wide-ranging composers as Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Strauss, Hindemith, Britten and Henze. This period was further distinguished by many World and German Premieres, as Ms. Young brought contemporary music to the fore during her time in Hamburg.
Ms. Young is well known as a Wagner and Strauss specialist, a reputation she developed early in her career when she conducted multiple complete cycles of Wagner’s “Ring” at the Vienna State Opera and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin, as well as his Walküre and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg along with Strauss’ Elektra, Salome, Die Frau Ohne Schatten and Ariadne auf Naxos, and also with a new production of Hans Pfitzner’s Palestrina at the Bavarian State Opera. Beyond her numerous performances of Wagner’s and Strauss’ operas on Vienna’s famed Ringstrasse, Ms. Young’s long relationship with the Vienna State Opera, which began with her debut in 1993, includes the widely acclaimed rediscovery of Fromental Halevy’s La Juive in 1999, along with many of the most famous works of the Italian operatic repertoire. After her responsibilities in Hamburg kept her away for several years, she returned to the the Vienna State Opera in the 2011/12 season with a celebrated revival of of Strauss’s Daphne, and she remains a regular feature of that house’s programming to this day. Outside of Vienna, Ms. Young has appeared as a guest conductor at such world-class opera houses as Opéra National de Paris, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and she is a regular guest at the major opera houses in Munich, Berlin, Dresden and Zurich.
Alongside her extensive operatic performances, Ms. Young has also made a name for herself as a symphonic conductor. She has worked with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including among many others, the Philharmonic Orchestras of Berlin, London, Munich, New York, and Vienna. Following completion of her tenure in Hamburg, Ms. Young is appearing once again as a regular guest conductor with orchestras around the world, including the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Dresden Philharmonic and both the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and the Konzerthausorchester of Berlin, in addition to several North American orchestras, and with various orchestras in her native Australia.
Ms. Young’s work is also preserved on numerous recordings. In addition to complete recordings of Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler and Wagner’s “Ring” with the Hamburg State Opera, the OehmsClassics label has released Ms. Young’s recordings with the Hamburg Philharmonic of the complete Bruckner symphonies in their original versions, as well as the complete symphonies of Brahms, Mahler’s Sixth and Seventh Symphonies, and Franz Schmidt’s The Book with the Seven Seals. Her performance of the rediscovery of Halevy’s La Juive at the Vienna State Opera has also been released on CD, while DVDs have been released of her Bavarian State Opera performances of Pfitzner’s Palenstrina, and her Hamburg performances of Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites and of Aribert Reimann’s Lear.
Along with her honorary doctorates from the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne, Ms. Young counts the Brahms Prize of Schleswig-Holstein and the Goethe Medal among her numerous awards and accolades. In addition, she is a “Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres” in France, a Member of the Order of Australia, and a Professor at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Hamburg.
Hailed for her “brilliant… polished, expressive and intense” (Cleveland Plain Dealer) and “absolutely stunning” (Chicago Tribune) playing, Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma is respected by critics, peers and audiences as one of classical music’s most striking and captivating musical personalities. Conductor Jaap van Zweden with whom Simone enjoys a regular collaboration, describes her as one of the leading violinists in the world. With an extensive repertoire of over 60 Violin Concertos, Simone’s recent seasons have seen her perform with many of the world’s leading orchestras.
Notable recent highlights include her debut with the New York Philharmonic under Jaap van Zweden, and with the Chicago Symphony, described by the Chicago Tribune as “piercingly beautiful”, as well as return invitations to the Cleveland Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Warsaw Philharmonic and Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Other significant debuts included the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, MDR Sinfonie Orchester Leipzig, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Hessischer Rundfunk Orchester, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony, Les Siécles, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. Highlights for the 19/20 and 20/21 seasons include debuts with Gürzenich Orchester, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Orchestre National d’Ile de France, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symhony Orchestra, and return invitations to the London Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Houston Symphony, Oregon Symphony Orchestra, Hallé, RTE Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Residentie Orkest, Dutch Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, National Arts Center Orchestra Ottawa.
Besides her close collaboration with Jaap van Zweden, Simone has worked with many other eminent conductors including Vladimir Jurowski, François-Xavier Roth, Omer Meir-Wellber, Edward Gardner, Mark Wigglesworth, Kent Nagano, Sir Neville Marriner, Sir Mark Elder, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, James Gaffigan, Sir Andrew Davis, Robert Trevino, Andrès Orozco-Estrada, Jiří Bělohlávek, Carlos Kalmar, Kirill Karabits, Stéphane Denève, Hannu Lintu, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Fabien Gabel, and Andris Poga. In 2017 Simone’s most recent recording featuring Shostakoviich’s first violin concerto and Gubaidulina’s In Tempus praesens with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic under James Gaffigan and Reinbert de Leeuw was released on Challenge Classics and received high accolades from the press, as did her previous Mendelssohn, Janáček and Schumann CD with pianist Robert Kulek.
In addition to her many international prizes and distinctions, Simone was awarded the national Dutch VSCD Classical Music Prize in the category ‘New Generation Musicians’ in 2010, awarded by the Association of Dutch Theatres and Concert Halls to artists that have made remarkable and valuable contributions to the Dutch classical music scene. In May 2018 Simone was invited by His Majesty King Willem-Alexander and Her Majesty Queen Máxima of The Netherlands to perform during their official state visit to Luxembourg. Simone began studying the violin at the age of 5 and moved to the UK aged 11 to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School with Professor Hu Kun. At the age of 14 Simone made her professional solo debut with the North Netherlands Orchestra performing Paganini’s 1st Violin Concerto, her debut highly praised by the press. She continued her studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Professor Hu Kun and Professor Maurice Hasson, where she graduated aged 19 with first class honours and several prestigious awards. In 2019, she was made Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London, an honour limited to 300 former Academy students, and awarded to those musicians who have distinguished themselves within the profession.
Simone currently lives in The Netherlands. Simone plays the “Mlynarski” Stradivarius (1718), on generous loan to her by an anonymous benefactor.
For more information please visit: www.simonelamsma.comFollow Simone on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/simonelamsmaAugust 2019This biography is not to be edited without approval. If you wish to amend or shorten this biography, please do so and send it to Sylvia Ferreira for approval prior to publication at [email protected]We update our biographies regularly. Please destroy all previous biographical material
The 2024–2025 season is the National Symphony Orchestra’s 94th season and Music Director Gianandrea Noseda’s eighth season. Since its founding in 1931, the NSO has been committed to performances that enrich the lives of its audience and community members. In 1986, the National Symphony became an artistic affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where it has performed since the Center opened in 1971. The NSO participates in events of national and international importance, including the annual nationally televised concerts on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol, live-streamed performances on medici.tv, and local radio broadcasts on WETA 90.9 FM.
Since launching its eponymous recording label in 2020, the NSO has embarked on ambitious recording projects including the Orchestra’s first complete Beethoven Symphony cycle and the release of the first-ever cycle of George Walker’s Sinfonias, both led by Noseda. Recent projects include a new series of Four Symphonic Works by Kennedy Center Composer-in-Residence Carlos Simon conducted by Noseda, and William Shatner’s So Fragile, So Blue, recorded live with the NSO in the Concert Hall.
The NSO’s community engagement and education projects are nationally recognized, including NSO In Your Neighborhood; Notes of Honor; and Sound Health. Career development opportunities for young musicians include the NSO Youth Fellowship Program and its acclaimed, tuition-free Summer Music Institute.
Meet the National Symphony Orchestra
Gianandrea Noseda, Music Director, The Roger Sant and Congresswoman Doris Matsui Chair
Steven Reineke, Principal Pops Conductor
First Violins
Nurit Bar-Josef, Concertmaster
Ying Fu, Associate Concertmaster, The Jeanne Weaver Ruesch Chair
Ricardo Cyncynates, Assistant Concertmaster
Jane Bowyer Stewart
Pavel Pekarsky***
Heather LeDoux Green
Joel Fuller
Lisa-Beth Lambert
Jing Qiao
Angelia Cho
Mae Lin**
Regino Madrid**
Second Violins
Marissa Regni, Principal
Dayna Hepler, Assistant Principal
Cynthia R. Finks
Deanna Lee Bien
Glenn Donnellan
Natasha Bogachek
Carole Tafoya Evans
Jae-Yeon Kim
Wanzhen Li
Hanna Lee
Benjamin Scott
Malorie Blake Shin
Marina Aikawa
Peiming Lin
Derek Powell
Violas
Daniel Foster, Principal, The Mrs. John Dimick Chair
Abigail Evans Kreuzer, Assistant Principal
Denise Wilkinson
Nancy Thomas
Jennifer Mondie
Tsuna Sakamoto
Ruth Wicker
Mahoko Eguchi
Rebecca Epperson
Chiara Dieguez**
Andrew Eng**
Cellos
David Hardy, Principal, The Hans Kindler Chair, The Strong Family and the Hattie M. Strong Foundation
Glenn Garlick, Assistant Principal
David Teie
James Lee
Rachel Young
Mark Evans
Eugena Chang Riley
Loewi Lin
Britton Riley
Basses
Robert Oppelt, Principal
Richard Barber, Assistant Principal
Jeffrey Weisner
Ira Gold
Paul DeNola
Charles Nilles
Alexander Jacobsen
Michael Marks
Harp
Adriana Horne, Principal
Flutes
Aaron Goldman, Principal
Leah Arsenault Barrick, Assistant Principal
Matthew Ross
Carole Bean, Piccolo
Oboes
Nicholas Stovall***, Principal, The Volunteer Council Chair
Jamie Roberts, Acting Principal
Harrison Linsey, Acting Assistant Principal
Kathryn Meany Wilson, English Horn
Clarinets
Lin Ma, Principal
Eugene Mondie, Assistant Principal
Paul Cigan
Peter Cain, Bass Clarinet
Bassoons
Sue Heineman, Principal
David Young, Assistant Principal
Steven Wilson
Sean Gordon, Contrabassoon
Horns
Abel Pereira, Principal, The National Trustees’ Chair
James Nickel, Acting Associate Principal
Markus Osterlund
Robert Rearden
Scott Fearing
Wei-Ping Chou**
Trumpets
William Gerlach, Principal, The Howard Mitchell Chair, The Strong Family and the Hattie M. Strong Foundation
Michael Harper, Assistant Principal
Quentin Erickson**
Tom Cupples
Trombones
Craig Mulcahy, Principal
Evan Williams, Assistant Principal
David Murray
Matthew Guilford, Bass Trombone
Tuba
Stephen Dumaine, Principal, The James V. Kimsey Chair
Timpani
Jauvon Gilliam, Principal, The Marion E. Glover Chair
Scott Christian, Assistant Principal
Percussion
Eric Shin, Principal, The Hechinger Foundation Chair
Erin Dowrey, Assistant Principal
Scott Christian
Joseph Connell*
Keyboard
Lambert Orkis, Principal
Lisa Emenheiser*
Organ
William Neil*
Librarians
Elizabeth Cusato Schnobrick, Principal
Zen Stokdyk, Associate
Karen Lee, Assistant
Personnel
Karyn Garvin, Director, Orchestra Personnel
Sufyan Naaman, Personnel and Auditions Coordinator**
Stage Managers
David Langrell, Manager
N. Christian Bottorff, Assistant Manager
The National Symphony Orchestra uses a system of revolving strings. In each string section, untitled members are listed in order of length of service.
* Regularly Engaged Extra Musician ** Temporary Position *** Leave of Absence
Terms and Conditions
All events and artists subject to change without prior notice.
Staff
Staff for the Concert Hall
Director of ProductionKate Roberts
Master TechnicianZach Boutilier*
Master TechnicianMichael Buchman *
Head UsherCathy Crocker*
Treasurer, Box OfficeDeborah Glover*
Master TechnicianPaul Johannes*
Master TechnicianApril King*
Theater ManagerAllen V. McCallum Jr.*
Master TechnicianJohn Ottaviano*
Master TechnicianArielle Qorb*
*Represented by ATPAM, the Association of Theatrical Press Agents and Managers.
The box office at the Kennedy Center is represented by I.A.T.S.E, Local #868.
Steinway Piano Gallery is the exclusive area representative of Steinway & Sons and Boston pianos, the official pianos of the Kennedy Center.
The technicians at the Kennedy Center are represented by Local #22, Local #772, and Local #798 I.A.T.S.E., AFL-CIO-CLC, the professional union of theatrical technicians.
National Symphony Orchestra musicians are represented by the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. Federation of Musicians, AFM Local 161-710.
If you are in a dark theater, please be considerate of other audience members before turning off Dark Mode. Thank you!
If you are in a dark theater, please be considerate of other audience members before visiting other parts of the site that may have brighter pages. Thank you!
