By the end of opening night, Gelb had on his hands a full-blown fiasco, with boos resounding from the orchestra seats, the upper galleries, and even the plaza outside, where people had watched on a screen for free.

NEWYORKER: Fiasco

So, after hiking the price for the most sought-after seats in the orchestra section pairs adjacent to the center aisle in the first 20 rows those seats will cost less next year than they did before the price increases, said Lisa Mallory, assistant manager for marketing and communications.

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The Sydney Opera House management has tried to quell the rumblings by putting up sound deflectors in the ceilings but the orchestra say they just look like toilet seats and don't help at all.

BBC: Sydney's opera rebellion

Gelb persuaded Pan Am to provide a 747, the first ever to fly into China. (A staircase for disembarking had to be brought from Hong Kong.) Gelb made good use of the seats not filled by members of the orchestra.

NEWYORKER: Man Behind the Curtain

Or they're performing on platforms behind the set (last summer's "Death Takes a Holiday") or in the boxes on either side of the stage (last season's "The People in the Picture") or, as in the case of the recent revival of "Godspell, " scattered in the seats throughout the theater's how appropriate orchestra section.

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Shamus Khan, a sociologist at Columbia University, is analyzing the orchestra's subscriber lists to create a database mapping New York's elites in the seats of the concert hall.

WSJ: Philharmonic Unveils Trove Online

Nothing can disguise the problems facing a new orchestra of foreigners playing to an unsophisticated audience in an 864-seat concert hall (a standard hall seats about 2, 500), at the mercy of a single corporate sponsor (the state oil company, Petronas), and in a tropical climate that makes instruments come unglued.

ECONOMIST: The Malaysian Philharmonic

The BBC said cinema audiences would have "the best seats in the house" with key cameras in front of the conductor and a remote camera within the orchestra.

BBC: Last Night of Proms in 3D cinemas