Violence at the symphony

Stranger danger: When a violent altercation erupts in the midst of a Chicago Symphony Orchestra concert, I wonder what’s happening to us, what’s happening to civility.  Are the financial, real estate, political meltdowns of the past three years affecting our ability to co-exist peacefully and respectfully?

Tuesday night at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, middle of Row K on the main floor for a program that begins with the Suite from “The Love for Three Oranges, Op.33a” by Prokofiev. The music is wonderfully tumultuous, athletic, challenging to musicians and audience. Melody lines are tossed about the sections of the orchestra. With a full complement of musicians, the suite fills the auditorium with a riot of sound ­– dissonance, atonality and confounding contradictions and splendid melodies. Suddenly an older woman four seats to my left leaps to her feet and begins hitting the young man to her left with her program. Then she sits down and calmly and deliberately presses flat the pages of her program.

Stunning, distracting, mystifying. These were strangers. They had come in at different times, from different directions. As the lights dimmed following intermission, the four seats in the middle of Row K sat empty.  One patron said afterwards, “strangers don’t behave like that.” But they did.