Decision made easy. . . and a side rant about subscriptions to Opera San Jose, etc.

Earlier this week, I was trying to decide between two possible music events--a concert with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields and a certain very talented (aside: can someone tell me the adjective form of "prodigy"? Prodigious seems to mean something else) piano soloist whose name I won't mention, b/c every time I mention her name on this blog, I get like 30 hits and since I'm just mentioning her name and not really writing anything substantive about her, I kindof feel bad for these google-trollers who were probably expecting to find either a fascinating story about her or some sort of juicy gossip.

So anyway, a concert with she-who-shall-not-be-mentioned and Neville Marriner or a string quartet recital with the TinAlley SQ? Well, I've been trying to get tickets for the latter. I've left emails and phone messages for the past few days, to no avail. Then today, someone finally called me back.

Evidently, I spoke too fast for her to understand my phone #, which is odd, b/c I thought I was speaking very v...e...r....y slowly. (I, who wish that 80 percent of Californians and 99 percent of Midwesterners came equipped with fast-forward buttons, speak too fast? I who sometimes annoy my friend because I tell her, "can you speak faster? My mind is starting to wander," speak too fast? I who always end up wanting to strangle my landlord after talking on the phone with her for more than 2 minutes b/c she speaks a tad too slowly and repeats herself 10 times?? Would I ever speak too fast? Ok, I'll try harder next time.)

Well, after asking me a bunch of questions (are you a musician? Do you go to ______ school? Oh, you work at _________?), for some reason, this stranger who was selling tickets decided to give me a free ticket. I mean, this woman doesn't know me at all.

We went back and forth for 5 or 6 minutes. I don't often pay full-price for tickets, and usually don't go if tickets are over a certain threshold, so when I can actually afford it, and they program something I want to go hear, then I want to pay and support the musicians. I mean, they're coming all the way from Australia, and touring like mad. Not that my $30 or $40 is going to make much of a difference, but they've got to pay for hotels, airfare, maybe extra baggage/handling for their cello, etc., right? So I kept trying to insist on buying a ticket. But she was really sweet and for whatever reason, she wanted to give me a free ticket. ("Well, I told the other board members that they can bring their friends, so you can come as my friend." "But I barely know you. . ." etc.)

Well, that's that and my dilemma is solved. Late Bartok and Haydn with TinAlley it is.

*****

I'm grateful for the generosity of strangers like this who barely know me, but for whatever reason ("Oh, you work at the place that my daughter goes to school. I'll give you a free ticket.") I enter their lives at the right time and become the beneficiary of such random acts of kindness. I'll still give a donation so I'm supporting something, whatever that may be. But really, I love it when I find something that is affordable and I like your programming choices, so I want to support such confluence of events in some way and say "please keep doing this" by buying a ticket, especially if you are a struggling local outfit. (And who isn't these days?) It makes me feel like I'm voting and participating as an active concert-going citizen.

I know I'm not supposed to look a gift horse in the mouth, etc., but I'm still wondering if I should've just bought a ticket. I'm not trying to be ungrateful, but I wonder if she thought I might be a prospective season ticket subscriber. Because if she does think this, (and based on several key words mentioned during our conversation, I have reason to suspect this.) I'm afraid that I'm going to disappoint her.

Sure, I'll go to future concerts and events if the timing works and I'm interested in the program.

But I don't do subscriptions.

I've only done one subscription, and that was to San Jose Opera, long before they got too expensive for me to afford. I would probably still go see them if their cheapest "nosebleed" seat tickets didn't cost $66(!!) or if they had discounted rush tickets or standing room tickets. But they don't, alas, and when I can get rush orchestra seats to the SF Symphony for $25 or $10 standing-room tickets, the $66 balcony seats for SJ Opera just don't make any sense.

But where was I?

Oh yes, subscriptions. Actually, I think it wasn't a subscription, but a guild membership with a 1/2 subscription at a substantial discount and with flexible dates, but still a hefty bit of $ to pay upfront for someone who was then making barely $35K/year. I actually enjoyed the subscription and liked the idea of having a performance to look forward to every few months, but this woman called me whenever the opera performed works that weren't part of my half-subscription. The first two times, I thought, being harassed like this isn't my cup of tea, but gave her the benefit of doubt, in case she was trying to be nice. Then it started getting annoying. I really really hate that kind of harassment. I hate getting unsolicited calls and emails like that.

She made me feel guilty for not buying the other tickets. One time, she didn't ever outright say this, but I got the sense that she was telling me that the half-subscription w/ guild membership was at such a discount that I should really buy some of the other shows. She also wanted me to join the guild group for a pre-opera dinner outing. She didn't seem to understand that if I'm paying $30 for an opera, I can't afford to go to a fancy dinner on top of that, even if the dinner was a "special deal for only $25". Even now, though I make much more than $30K a year, I will still eat at home or on the cheap if going to a concert. Once or twice a year, I might go to a concert and do a fancy (=over $25) dinner if there's a group of us.

Dammit people. If any of you programming types are trolling this blog and wondering why young people don't subscribe to opera, or this-and-that, this is it. The one time we deviate from our usual mode and try the subscription thing, we get goaded into tacking on more shows and dinners we can't afford.

This kind of harassment makes me really mad. First, when you're 27 (note: this was several years ago. I am now 60 in base 5.6. ) and barely making $30K a year and paying $700 in rent and putting in another few hundred dollars in retirement and trying to squirrel away $ in the hopes of saving the $100K down payment needed to buy just a 1 bedroom 600 square feet condo, and it costs you $1,000 per trip to visit your parents and family once a year, because they live in a foreign country, (plus not to mention most people have student loans and possible car loans they might be paying off), and going to concerts is just one of 5 things you want to do, it doesn't leave you a whole lot of disposable income for stuff like more opera tickets besides the ones I already bought. So instead of buying more tickets, I often brought friends. She had no idea how many friends I brought to the opera. I invited at least 7 people that season, b/c I could extend this steal-deal pricing to 2 or 3 other companion tickets. I admit it was a fun year of opera-going, but that is the last subscription of any kind I plan to do.

Partly it is the money and interest issue--I do not ever know 8 months in advance that there are 6 concerts that I want to go pay $50 to go see. Plus, subscriptions are inflexible. I can't, for example, pick mostly balcony seats and then pick better seats for the one or two shows I have a strong interest in. One of the reasons the SJ Opera subscription was so enticing was because I could pick and choose seats and dates and change them for each performance. I didn't have to commit to all Saturdays, all orchestra seats, etc.

But it is mostly a timing issue. I simply don't want to commit my schedule that far in advance, when I don't know what else is going on. In the case of anything in SF (SF Symphony, SF Opera, SF Ballet, etc.), I don't want to drive up more than once in a weekend and I rarely drive up more than once or twice a month. If I am going to see friends in the city on a Friday, I will not drive up again on a Saturday to go see a concert. Unless it's Gustavo Dudamel or something I really really want to go see. Also, during certain times of the year, I'm completely out of commission, because I'm too tired from dance classes, rehearsals, dress rehearsals, sectionals, etc. But again, I don't know this at the time that most subscription commitments are due.

Thus for a commitment-phobic p (scroll down for description of p temperament) like me, subscriptions simply don't work.

So to return to the ethicality of accepting a free ticket when I'm most probably not going to do a subscription. . . is this ok?