How One Night at Lincoln Center Changed Everything

Date night, 1979. Avery Fisher Hall. Lincoln Center. I showed up in my only dress; my boyfriend (now husband of 42 years) wore a corduroy blazer (it was the ‘70s). We were clearly out of our league. Everyone else looked like they had just come from the Met Gala. I would later learn that formalwear wasn’t about showing off your fit—it was a show of respect for the artists. We hadn’t gotten the memo.

Then Zubin Mehta walked out. I had no idea who he was. He raised his hands, and suddenly, silence. A thick, reverent, anticipatory silence. And then: sound. Real, live classical music.

I grew up on the Jersey Shore. My music taste evolved from catching Springsteen and Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes playing at the Stone Pony—more than once. But this? This was a whole different experience. No singing along. No clapping out of rhythm. No dancing. Only pure, focused presence. An audience trained to listen. Really listen.

If that sounds like a dying art, you’re not wrong. These kinds of experiences are disappearing. U.S. adult attendance at ballet performances has dropped 52 percent since 1982. Classical music audiences are down nearly 30 percent since the pandemic. Even the mighty Met Opera still struggles to fill seats unless Puccini’s on the bill. That silence before the music starts? Fewer people are showing up to hear it.

The Making of a Connoisseur

True fans—connoisseurs—don’t just show up. They study. They read. They argue about tempo, technique, the director’s interpretation. They don’t just know what’s happening; they know why it’s happening. You don’t get that kind of engagement from scrolling YouTube.

“The audience for classical music is shrinking, and the connoisseur is an endangered species.”
— Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 2014

But let’s be honest— “it’s an acquired taste” has all the marketing appeal of a colonoscopy. What it really is? Earned appreciation. You understand the piece because you’ve taken the time to understand the context. That’s what makes it powerful.

That’s also what’s missing today.

The Political Roots of Classical Art

Of course, none of this art was created in a vacuum. Bach and his peers worked under the church or royal courts, creating art to please their patrons. That harpsichord sonata? It was a job assignment. Ballet? It was a courtship ritual disguised as high art. The elite danced; the masses watched. That was the point.

“During the AIDS crisis, People talked about the artists that were lost, but never about the audience that was lost. There was such a high level of connoisseurship of everything; that made the culture better. That level of connoisseurship is as important to the culture as the artist. Now we have none of that. When that audience died [of AIDS], the audience died. After that, it just got dumbed down. Dumbed down. That loss had a terrible effect.”

—Fran Lebowitz  Public Speaking, 2010

A great artist needs a great audience—one that demands more than TikTok trend bait and watered down Broadway content.

Why Balanchine Built Ballet for the Ruthless

If Beyoncé needed a team of choreographers to pull off Cowboy Carter, ballet had George Balanchine. The Russian émigré defined American ballet. His style? Brutal precision. Discipline over drama. Movement that served the music. He didn’t choreograph; he dictated.

Training under his legacy isn’t romantic. It’s punishing. Body shaming, impossible repetition, blisters, injuries, and judgment wrapped in a pink satin ribbon. That’s what makes it so delicious to the connoisseur: knowing beauty is born of agony. Knowing what it took to land that perfect arabesque.

Étoile: Ballet Gets a Streaming Rebrand

Just when ballet seemed ready to retire into the cultural archives, Étoile showed up in pointe shoes and a trench coat. Streaming on Amazon Prime, created by Amy Sherman-Palladino (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), it’s a love letter and a takedown all at once.

It’s glossy, sharp, and self-aware. The show romanticizes nothing. It dives into the guts of ballet: eating disorders, hierarchy, physical pain, gender politics. Think Black Swan meets prestige TV. With jokes.

For longtime ballet nerds, it’s a nod. For the uninitiated, it’s an education. And for everyone else, it’s a Trojan horse: Here’s your chance to get in on the art form without having to sit through three hours of Giselle. This is how culture gets passed down now—through streaming, not stage.

What We Lose When Arts Education Dies

You can’t appreciate what you were never taught. When I was growing up, the “performing arts” meant a high school musical or, if you were lucky, a once-in-a-lifetime field trip to see Cats on Broadway. Ballet? That was for the girls at The Private School who skipped home ec. Classical music? A thing the Magnet Academy kids did instead of marching band. For me and my friends, it may as well have been Gregorian chants in a 15th-century monastery. We were stuck rehearsing The Wizard of Oz in a multipurpose room that reeked of Friday night’s football uniforms.

Then came adulthood and, with it, a glimpse into another world: the realm of serious performing arts—and, just as importantly, the people who orbit that world. Not all audience members are created equal. Some people are just there for a night out. Some are tagging along. Others are trying it out once and may never come back.

But then there’s the connoisseur: the person who knows the art form, the company, the performers. Who reads the program before curtain and discusses the tempo afterward. These connoisseurs are fluent in the form, able to dissect every movement in Rite of Spring or every leap in Swan Lake. These people aren’t just loyal—they’re culture’s secret infrastructure. They donate, they advocate, they recruit. They’re the ones who keep the whole thing alive.

And yet, almost no one is studying how they’re made.

This matters.

A lot.

Because that’s exactly what we’re losing.

Over 55 percent of U.S. school districts have cut or drastically reduced arts funding in recent years, threatening the pipeline of future audiences and connoisseurs. Without students in those programs, we lose the future audience. The ones who will sit in the front row and get it. Who will challenge the art to be better. Who will show up, dressed up, and ready to feel something that’s not just trending.

Final Movement: Your Cue to Show Up

As I type this, I’m listening to Strauss’s On the Beautiful Blue Danube. You might know it from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Or Titanic. Or Austin Powers. It was written 150 years ago as a dance tune. And it still hits.

No, you don’t need an MFA to appreciate it. But you do need to care.

So here’s your cue: Stop scrolling. Go see something. Hear something. Sit in the silence before the music starts and let it undo you a little—in the best way.

That’s what art does.

And if you’re lucky? You won’t just applaud.

You’ll become a connoisseur.