Today was a banner day for us, as we went to our first, honest to goodness, Parisian soiree. You may remember that a few weeks ago as we were walking in the 14 arr. and looking at interesting buildings we met a man outside his house which was in a crescent of houses where the artist Man Ray lived for a couple years. He and a woman friend were going to lunch and they invited us to go along. A little after that the woman invited us to a "vernissage", which was an art opening of her companion's art work. This was just before Deb went back to Denver. Well that same woman offers evening music performances in her penthouse apartment, and we were invited.
The offering this evening was a tenor accompanied by piano singe the Liederkreiss by Schumann, and a series of songs based on the poems of Jacques Prevert with the music by Joseph Kosma. Since we live on rue Joseph Kosma we knew we would have to attend. There were perhaps 40 people in attendance and judging by the conversation this was a long standing group. I think the only new people were Deb and I and the performers. The tenor was perhaps 30 and had a wonderful voice which filled the room with ease, while the piano accompanist was in his early 20's and also very accomplished. The show lasted around an hour, after which the chairs were all folded up and/or moved to the sides of the room and a light buffet followed. Since this is Paris and since we had no real idea of what we were getting into, we brought along a bottle of wine which turned out to be a good thing. Most of the people who came in brought either wine or a potluck sort of entry to be added to the table.
So we had a nosh afterward along with a fair amount of wine and the conversations took off. We were sort of odd man out at the beginning as we only knew the two people with whom we'd had lunch those weeks ago. But by the end of the evening I imagine we would have talked with close to half of the people in attendance. Everyone was quite welcoming and seemed interested in what we were doing there. We had some spirited repartee on the current refugee crisis in Europe and the early role that the U.S. had in creating it. All in all I'd say it was just another one of the "Parisian dream" boxes that could be ticked. We will definitely be attending any future evenings from now until the end of our stay. I took a couple pictures most before anything took place, because after 9 months here I don't want to be a complete plouc, all the time.
Today was a banner day for us, as we went to our first, honest to goodness, Parisian soiree. You may remember that a few weeks ago as we were walking in the 14 arr. and looking at interesting buildings we met a man outside his house which was in a crescent of houses where the artist Man Ray lived for a couple years. He and a woman friend were going to lunch and they invited us to go along. A little after that the woman invited us to a "vernissage", which was an art opening of her companion's art work. This was just before Deb went back to Denver. Well that same woman offers evening music performances in her penthouse apartment, and we were invited.
The offering this evening was a tenor accompanied by piano singe the Liederkreiss by Schumann, and a series of songs based on the poems of Jacques Prevert with the music by Joseph Kosma. Since we live on rue Joseph Kosma we knew we would have to attend. There were perhaps 40 people in attendance and judging by the conversation this was a long standing group. I think the only new people were Deb and I and the performers. The tenor was perhaps 30 and had a wonderful voice which filled the room with ease, while the piano accompanist was in his early 20's and also very accomplished. The show lasted around an hour, after which the chairs were all folded up and/or moved to the sides of the room and a light buffet followed. Since this is Paris and since we had no real idea of what we were getting into, we brought along a bottle of wine which turned out to be a good thing. Most of the people who came in brought either wine or a potluck sort of entry to be added to the table.
So we had a nosh afterward along with a fair amount of wine and the conversations took off. We were sort of odd man out at the beginning as we only knew the two people with whom we'd had lunch those weeks ago. But by the end of the evening I imagine we would have talked with close to half of the people in attendance. Everyone was quite welcoming and seemed interested in what we were doing there. We had some spirited repartee on the current refugee crisis in Europe and the early role that the U.S. had in creating it. All in all I'd say it was just another one of the "Parisian dream" boxes that could be ticked. We will definitely be attending any future evenings from now until the end of our stay. I took a couple pictures most before anything took place, because after 9 months here I don't want to be a complete plouc, all the time.
Sounds like a wonderful time! Hopefully, you made some friends to do other things with as well.
ReplyDeleteWell, we intend to have dinner with the two original people and their spouse/companion in the near future
ReplyDeleteWell, we intend to have dinner with the two original people and their spouse/companion in the near future
ReplyDelete