And so the season ends with a fan favorite, the famous opera Tosca. A modern suspense thriller, it is the story of a turbulent love affair between the opera diva Tosca and the painter Cavaradossi who got into trouble with the police, etc.Torture, murder and a firing squad, sounds a bit like a modern-day CSI? If that's not enough, it ends with Tosca fleeing inside a tower and in a fleeting image, a body is suspended in free fall. How did they do that? Was that a double? It sure looked real to me.
Another superb production but then again I expected no less from the Metropolitan Opera.
We are New Yorkers, try and stop us from making noise or producing good music especially underground. Here we see the Elianto String Quintet, exceptionally talented Juilliard grads delivering Music Under NY down below the busy Times Square station.
All you need is a Metro Card and a good pair of listening ears! Even our subways make music. Remember West Side Story? There is a ballad from the show entitled Somewhere. Listen closely as one of the newer trains pull out of a station, you'll hear it whine a three-note tone resembling the beginning of the song!
My neighbor Jeff, a professor of electrical engineering at Cooper Union has an explanation for this phenomenon. He said: "The sound is a fluke. Newer trains run on alternating current, but the third rail delivers direct current; inverters chop it into frequencies that can be used by alternating motors. The frequencies excite the steel, which in the case of the R142 cars respond by singing Somewhere. Inverters on other trains run at different frequencies and thus are not gifted with such a recognizable song."
My neighbor Jeff, a professor of electrical engineering at Cooper Union has an explanation for this phenomenon. He said: "The sound is a fluke. Newer trains run on alternating current, but the third rail delivers direct current; inverters chop it into frequencies that can be used by alternating motors. The frequencies excite the steel, which in the case of the R142 cars respond by singing Somewhere. Inverters on other trains run at different frequencies and thus are not gifted with such a recognizable song."
Yeah, yeah. Gotcha or at least I think I did. Whatever it is Jeff, the subways, and I don't mean the British rock group, serenade me with Somewhere. There's a place for us.....
