Vicki Arkoff tours the Lincoln Center with Broadway legend Patti Lupone.
Broadway icon Patti LuPone was one of the first graduates of the Juilliard School’s drama division, located on the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts campus. She later starred on stage there in “Anything Goes” and “Matters of the Heart,” both at LC’s Vivian Beaumont Theater. But her most memorable moment on that important New York City stage? Saying “I do” to her husband at their theatrical wedding.
Lincoln Center is equated with the very best in music, opera, theater, jazz, dance, and has been a recurring iconic image used in Hollywood films past and present. And there’s nobody more qualified than LuPone to serve as our tour guide in PBS’ “Treasures of New York: Lincoln Center with Patti LuPone.” She provides an architectural and historical tour capturing the transformation of New York City’s famed landmark, in the showcasing the newly transformed campus that welcomes visitors and performers every day of the year.
After nearly five decades of artistic excellence and service to its community, the nation and the world, Lincoln Center embarked upon a major transformation initiative to fully modernize its concert halls and public spaces, renew its 16-acre urban campus, and reinforce its vitality for decades to come.
To illustrate this architectural transformation, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (LPCA) granted the Lupone and filmmakers access to archival footage rarely seen in public. Vintage footage of Leonard Bernstein, Risë Stevens (a leading lady of the Metropolitan Opera at the time the complex was built), along with early architectural renderings, showcase the massive undertaking to conceive and execute the building of the Lincoln Center campus. See for yourself at: http://www.thirteen.org/programs/treasures-of-new-york/lincoln-center-with-patti-lupone/
LuPone points out that key figures who were instrumental in the transformation of Lincoln Center, include Elizabeth Diller, principal, Diller, Scofidio and Renfro architectural firm; David Rockwell, architect; and Billie Tsien and Tod Williams, architects for the new David Rubenstein Atrium. Other prominent New Yorkers associated with the project – and featured in the film — include Thomas Mellins, historian and independent curator; Paul Goldberger, Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic for The New York Times and now architecture critic for The New Yorker magazine; Wu Han and David Finckel, co-artistic directors of the Chamber Music Society; Jacqueline Davis, executive director of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Peter Gelb, general manager for the Metropolitan Opera; Katherine Farley, chair of Lincoln Center’s board and Reynold Levy, Lincoln Center’s president.
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts serves three primary roles: presenter of superb artistic programming, national leader in arts and education and community relations, and manager of the Lincoln Center campus. As a presenter of some 5,000 programs and events annually, LCPA’s offerings include American Songbook, Great Performers, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Midsummer Night Swing, the Mostly Mozart Festival, Tully Scope Festival, White Light Festival, and Live From Lincoln Center. In addition, LCPA is leading a series of major capital projects on behalf of the resident organizations across the campus.
Lincoln Center is a 16-acre campus housing 12 prestigious cultural organizations: the LCPA, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, the Juilliard School, Lincoln Center Theater, the Metropolitan Opera, New York City Ballet, New York City Opera, New York Philharmonic, the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, and the School of American Ballet. There is always something happening on campus, and it is always as good as it gets.
To plan your visit in person, go to http://lc.lincolncenter.org/ for directions, map, calendar of events, and box office bookings. The visitors center is located at the David Rubenstein Atrium (Broadway at 63nd Street, NYC), and is open Monday – Friday from 8 a.m.–10 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. – 10 p.m. Open on holidays. Campus tours are given multiple times every day; US$17 for adults, US$14 for seniors (65+) and students (-30 with valid ID), and US$8 for children (6–12). Radio City Combo Tour: adults US$27.75, children US$17.25. Barganistas should note a New York City rarity: high-quality LCPA performances are featured for free every Thursday.
