LENOX, Massachusetts. André Bernard was three months old when he attended his first concert in Tanglewood: Benny Goodman playing Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in 1956. For almost each of the next 63 years, he has made the pilgrimage to the lush and sprawling lawn of this Mecca of the summer music here in the Berkshires.
You have had a routine. Start on the grass, with your ears glued to the bell that signaled that the show was about to begin. Then migrate to the Shed, the main concert hall, open to the sides. Watch the moths swoop down on the brass and arches, hovering toward the lights. Yo-Yo Ma, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Jessye Norman, Ray Charles, The Who – Mr. Bernard has seen them all here.
But you won’t be able to add to that list this year. The coronavirus pandemic has forced the cancellation of Tanglewood, just as it wiped out so many other beloved summer rituals: the box office hit in the air-conditioned multiplex, the waterfront art festival, the pop flamboyance of the sweaty stadium. Across the country, the booming seasonal pleasures have disappeared.
The loss of Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra since 1937, hits particularly hard here in bucolic western Massachusetts, where the festival takes place on 524 undulating acres. Many fans, such as Mr. Bernard, vice president and secretary of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, have attended for decades. (Mr. Bernard practically grew on wings: his father played the viola at the Boston Symphony.)
The schedule of rehearsals, conferences and concerts has been the beginning of the organization of these devoted fans; second homes were bought just to be close. They set their summers to Tanglewood, which normally attracts up to 350,000 people each season.
So what are Berkshires without Tanglewood? Relaxed? Scenic? Yes. But also empty, mysterious and very much awaited.
“He has been calm like anything,” said Barry Sheridan, a retired doctor who lives nearby. “It is very sad.” Losing a year of activity when you’re younger is one thing, he added, but at his age, 85, time is more valuable: “You’re not sure if there will be a next year.”
The Boston Symphony has broadcast some online performances, but its loss of revenue from the cancellation of Tanglewood amounts to $ 16.3 million, according to a spokeswoman, although part of that loss has been mitigated by ticket donations and reduced expenses. (It is the second time in the festival’s 83-year history that it has not featured live music; the other was in 1943, during World War II.)
A 2017 study by an economics professor at Williams College found that Tanglewood brings more than $ 100 million a year in economic benefits to the region, boosting hotels, museums, and other businesses. Last year, the festival opened a new educational facility on its grounds, with space for rehearsals for musicians and programming for adults, with the aim of further expanding its reach.
In a typical summer, Lenox, a city of art galleries and upscale boutiques in historic buildings, would be awash with traffic and shopper shoppers; couples vying for a table at Zinc, a French bistro; hikers and health seekers from retreats like Canyon Ranch and Kripalu, a yoga center; And, late at night, the artists and production teams gather for a drink to repeat the evening’s shows. The sense of creativity and community was “electric,” said Tony Chojnowski, who owns four stores in Lenox and is often found in a clique of artists and dancers at midnight.
The coronavirus outbreak appears to be under control in Massachusetts, which is more advanced than most states in its reopening; It has even allowed you to eat inside. But visitors are still rare.
Chojnowski said foot traffic decreased as much as 70 percent at its flagship boutique, Casablanca. “We are canceling the fall orders,” he said. “The cash flow is not there.” In the spring, when the physical stores closed, he began to approach his customers to see how they were maintained. “I probably made 300 or 400 phone calls,” he said. “I hope we can stay open.”
For locals and visitors who have reappeared, there are still delights in the green landscape, dotted with organic farms, hiking trails, and canoeing and kayaking. That is especially true for city dwellers and enclosed suburbs.
“It’s like your eyes are drinking in the landscape,” said Ellen Abelove, a Long Island social worker who, with her husband, was trying to lure others to join them in the Berkshires. “I keep texting my friends: ‘We are here!'”
Although indoor dining is an option, restaurants in Lenox and adjacent cities like Great Barrington and Stockbridge have created expansive outdoor setups, and the streets are now lined with pop-up shops, like a long stretch of backyard weddings .
Recently reopened hotels fill up to their recently reduced capacities; Little by little, institutions like Mass MoCA are reviving, with programmed tickets. The Berkshire Theater Group even obtained permission from Actors’ Equity to put on live theater in August.
And Tanglewood, in fact, is still open, for registered visitors, like a park. 1,341 people have signed up.
Mr. Bernard was one of those who visited the grounds. “I found it a little disturbing,” he said. “It is a bit, for me, like going back to the place where I grew up. And I would like to remember it like this.
His friend Stewart Edelstein, a retired lawyer, was also supported by memories of past concerts. Edelstein, who has played the horn for over 60 years, recalled an interpretation of Symphony n. Mahler’s 2, which includes 10 trumpets. “It was a revelation,” he said.
Others have adopted a Tanglewood without music, returning with a book or knitting project. On a recent Sunday, a handful of people performed a new version of their Tanglewood routines. (There was no traffic, so there was no need for the way back, which everyone swears that only he or she knows about.)
They parked too easily; folding camp chairs were slung over their shoulders; and he dutifully waited in a socially distant line to enter the grounds, making jokes behind his masks.
The lawn, a special blend of Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass, and a variety called fine fescue, designed to withstand the footsteps of up to 18,000 music fans per night, was as supernaturally green as ever. The view, still magnificent. Sound? Without tuning. Mainly birds singing. Except for a robin running from the shade of one red maple to another, he was very still.
There are some new rules. While visitors once packed elaborate picnics, with wine and white tablecloths, floral centerpieces, and even chandeliers, they are now officially not allowed to eat. “You’re not going to mention that we had a sandwich, are you?” a woman nervously asked a journalist.
Stretching out under a white oak with some friends, Gene Tencza, a cabinetmaker from Orange, Massachusetts, pulled out a tin whistle. He played some traditional Irish and Polish songs and, showing a little, a version of “Heartbreak Hotel”.
He and his friends recalled the performances of Wynton Marsalis and James Taylor, a stalwart from Tanglewood; the annual closing production of Beethoven’s Ninth; and other indelible moments of the festival. As the afternoon grew late, a bell rang, these days not meaning the concert is beginning, but rather that the grounds are closing, and Mr. Tencza and his whistle paraded his distant friends to the tune from “The Star-Spangled Banner”. . “
