Best seat in the house

I recently attended an András Schiff recital at Chicago Symphony Center (not the first such Schiff performance I have been to). The conceit of this concert was the “last sonatas,” a performance of the last sonatas of Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert respectively. (This was actually the third in a series of concerts, the previous two consisting of the antepenultimate and penultimate sonatas respectively of the same four composers.) I was a little bit disorganized about buying tickets — I only heard about the concert on the radio the week before — but this had a positive effect: the tickets were almost sold out, so the CSO introduced extra “stage seating,” which is exactly what it sounds like. I literally had the best seat in the house, roughly located in the middle of where the first violins would be. I swear that Andras Schiff looked directly into my eyes for one of his bows. (To be fair, hew bowed quite a few times — there were about 6 curtain calls in between two encores: a middle movement of the penultimate Schubert sonata and the aria to the Goldberg variations.) If you ever get a chance to purchase stage tickets at the CSO, I strongly recommend it!