Last night I caught my second glorious performance of the New York Oratorio’s Carnegie Hall performance of Handel’s “Messiah.” Jett and Cait attended also. My ex-wife Maggie Wells, part of the superb soprano chorus, provided the tickets. Special congrats to conductor Kent Tritle, the orchestra, soprano Leslie Fagan, mezzo-soprano Sara Murphy, tenor Nicholas Phan and bassy-voiced Matt Boehler. From my 12.24.13 review: “I must say that the piece itself, which ran about 2 hours and 45 minutes with intermission, felt a bit trying at times. ‘Messiah’ is an astonishingly complex work that soars and swirls and reaches for the heavens, but it is rather taken with itself. Handel was basically saying (a) ‘get down on your knees and stay there until this is over’ and (b) ‘if you’re a devout Christian, this shouldn’t be a problem.’ The lyrics, boiled down, are a pious repetition of Christian platitudes about the absolutely glorious, mind-blowing divinity and wondrousness of Jesus Christ and the Holy Father and the archangels and so on. All right already. But it’s a ‘great’ work and I let it all in. Happy for that.”