Forty years ago, when I first moved to the Upper West Side and the neighborhood was one of the most crime ridden in the city, Verdi Square was a trash strewn enclave where junkies congregated to shoot up and deal heroin. Along with neighboring Sherman Square, it was in fact the setting for the downbeat 1971 film The Panic in Needle Park. It's surreal to see how thoroughly it's now gentrified and to read the following in the program notes:
"The Verdi Square Festival of the Arts was created by a group of Upper West Side music lovers. Now in its eighth year, the Festival presents leading young artists in a series of free outdoor concerts at one of New York's most historic mini-parks. Legendary figures such as Caruso, Chaliapin, Stravinsky, Toscanini, the Gershwin brothers, Ziegfield, and Dreiser used to stroll here."
At any rate, yesterday afternoon marked the last event in this season's Festival. Three voice students from Mannes - Liana Guberman, soprano; Christopher Colmenero, tenor; and Suchan Kim, baritone - appeared onstage to sing amplified Verdi arias in honor of the bicentennial of the composer's birth. These pieces included Brindisi, E strano...Ah, fors'e lui and Sempre libera from La Traviata; E sogno? O realta from Falstaff; Gia nella notte densa and Nium mi tema from Otello; and Dio, che nell' alma infondere from Don Carlo. As the subway rumbled underfoot and the sirens wailed on Broadway, the Verdi sculpture looked down benignly on the performance taking place below.
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