Word: orchestras
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...swings between humor and pathos ended that evening at the East Pyongyang Grand Theater, an ornate, three-tier orchestra hall whose stage had recently been fitted with a new acoustic shell to make the venue worthy of the New York Philharmonic. About 1,400 people jammed the hall--a few dozen foreign diplomats and business people, the rest North Koreans. When Maazel took the podium, it quickly became clear that the evening would be one of emotion. North Korean and U.S. flags stood at either end of the stage, and the audience rose as both nations' anthems were played...
...soon became clear that I would not be seeing very much of it. The North Koreans, to say the least, are control freaks. Hordes of government minders immediately surrounded us on the tarmac as we waited for the orchestra's music director, Lorin Maazel, and his musicians to have a group picture taken in front of a beaming mosaic of the Great Leader. The minders, whose forced conviviality didn't hide the tension in their faces, would not leave our side until about 44 hours later, when we got on a flight out of Pyongyang...
While the orchestra rehearsed, our minders took the journalists on a whirlwind tour of Pyongyang. One highlight: a hill overlooking the city, where a gigantic bronze statue of the Great Leader stands in front of the Korean Revolutionary Museum. There was no one around as we snapped photos of one another in front of the Big Man, but as we were about to leave, a group of around 40 people walked up in orderly rows, approaching the statue reverentially and then bowing deeply. But before we could ask what, exactly, the Great Leader meant to them, their tour guide herded...
...subjects, a colleague accidentally opened a door and found herself in a classroom that was dimly lit and at least 15°F (8°C) colder than the ones we had been shown. Some of the students wore winter jackets and hats. Earlier that morning, a member of the orchestra arrived late for a lavish breakfast buffet and found a couple of waitresses taking pictures of the mountains of unfinished food. It's been 10 years since the great famine ended, killing an estimated 2 million or more North Koreans, but the waitresses at Alcatraz had never seen a spread quite...
...musicians played compositions by Richard Wagner, Antonin Dvorak and George Gershwin, but it was the last piece that brought down the house. Arirang is a 600-year-old Korean folk anthem adored in both North and South, and the orchestra "played it beautifully," a beaming Mr. Kim pronounced. As the musicians left the stage, some turned and waved goodbye, and many in the audience reciprocated. The cheers then got louder and went...