Royal Theatre

We entered the grand front door of the theater at 8:30 last night just as the concert was meant to begin. The stairs up to the auditorium were blocked off and there was nobody around. In one hallway, tables were set up for what looks to be a dinner for fifty people. But we’re here with Josh and Sandra trying to see the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Morocco for the first concert of their 10th anniversary season, and we’re not sure where to go.

Wandering past many signs proclaiming “off limits to tourists,” we followed a couple of people heading out a small side door exit. There, a ticket taker points us around the back of the theater to an outdoor garden area where members of the orchestra are smoking cigarettes and tuning their instruments in the night air. It’s a bit strange to find ourselves “backstage,” but at least we’ve joined a group of a few other equally confused concert-goers.

High over the stage, workers hastily strung blue tarps and we realized first that the concert was open air, and second that the tarps do not cover the audience. For the past week we’ve had brief showers each evening - not a lot of rain, but enough to prompt us to remove the cushions from our courtyard. We’re a little surprised that this Royal Theater has the concrete risers of a high school football stadium rather than actual seats, albeit with cushions, and we sit down to look over the program of Beethoven. We check the names in the orchestra, and see among the 75 musicians about ten women, and perhaps three Europeans.

We’re used to going to concerts in the States where a large part of the audience is highly musically educated. You can feel the energy coming from the front of orchestra seating, and know by the coughing or lack thereof how they’re responding to the performance. There’s no such sense here, where a brightly bedecked and enthusiastic European woman encourages her fellow-audience members to rise to their feet and claps between movements.

Midway through the second piece, a violin concerto featuring soloist Patrice Fontanarosa, we noticed a cat slowly descending the stairs to the left of the stage. Cats are all over Morocco, so this should come as no surprise, and the feline sauntered out onto the stage, weaving its way between the musicians. It wasn’t until he rubs against the leg of one of the second violins, that he seemed to have any impact on the musicians.

By this point, the sky had started to spit. One woman came prepared, and opened an umbrella until the people sitting behind her complained that they couldn’t see. We were spared the few fat drops turning into actual rain, though the gusts that pass through the theater managed to send one cellist’s sheet music flying from the stage.

These missteps never developed into a fiasco. The performance itself was solid, if not spectacular. The orchestra seemed to have a hard time remaining focused, and crisp, beautiful passages give way to muddle. There were a few times we thought we saw a brief look of frustration cross Fontanarosa’s face, but we were excited to be sitting among expats and Moroccans (we waved hello to a shop keeper from the souks we’ve come to like) taking in the music.

Between November and June, the orchestra travels each month for concerts in Casablanca, Marrakech, and its home base of Rabat. For less that the cost of a movie at The Grove, we’ll happily attend more, but as we’re heading into the wet season, we’ll bring raincoats and hats next time.