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Big Names and Big Sound Mark Charlotte Symphony's Return to Mainstream Programming

By Perry Tannenbaum, CVNC -- 

Vaccinated, boosted, masked, and carded, we're all starting to feel more comfortable at public events these days. The Charlotte Symphony performed with more than twice the number of musicians onstage at the Knight Theater compared to just a couple of months ago. Social distancing seemed to be an ancient artifact. The stranger who presumed she could safely poach my seat at intermission readily took consolation by poaching the empty seat right next to me. Christopher Warren-Green felt so much at ease that, instead of scrounging for orchestral pieces that could be credibly performed by a reduced number of masked and distanced musicians, he stuck with a program of Mozart, Beethoven, and Prokofiev returning to brand-name white male composers who have been dead for at least 65 years. And in a show of restraint that was unthinkable at the beginning of CSO's 2021-22 season, subscribers didn't feel obliged to give every piece a standing ovation and every movement applause.

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