Ordinarily I do not write about performances, especially ones held far away from most of our readers. But an experience that came to me unexpectedly last week still glows in my heart, so I’d like to share it.

Finding myself called to lecture on a tour for Smithsonian Journeys called Old World Europe, I caught up with the group in Budapest. No one want to leave the spectacular city of Budapest. But when the next stop is Vienna, that’s a pretty good consolation!

Our first morning in Vienna, we had completed a bus tour and walked around the museum area of the Ringstrasse. We even had witnessed the crossing of Lipizzaner Stallions between their luxury stables and the opulent show arena seen in all of the pictures. We were about to re-board the bus for our short ride to Schönbrunn Palace (the summer dwelling of Empress Maria Theresa). Suddenly, from behind me, our spirited Latvian travel director, Silvija, pulled me aside and said: “Take this and go!”

Go where? Into my hand she pushed a ticket to a final dress rehearsal for a world premiere based on Joseph Haydn’s 1802 oratorio The Seasons. It was starting at the Vienna State Opera in 45 minutes at 11 a.m. I had read about this production before arriving in Vienna since the premiere happened to be on a Saturday night when our schedule was open. Tickets, though, were not going to be cheap, so I let the idea of my going drop.

The ticket in my hand had a signature scribbled large across it. Clearly, it was meant for someone else. After all, such tickets are not sold, but accorded to people with specific connections to the show (production members, patrons, spouses). I stared at it in wonder.

“Wait.” I protested: “I can’t go. I need to be with the group.” “No,” Silvija said flatly. “You go with us for everything, all the time. We’re fine. Take off.” (They, of course would be fine, accompanied by her, a second travel director, plus the city guide from Vienna who would conduct the palace tour.) “Furthermore,” she stared me down, “how many times have you been to Schönbrunn?”

“Ten, . . . twelve, maybe fifteen?” “Ahah!” she proclaimed. “That’s my point. Take this ticket and get out of here!”

I didn’t budge. “Where did you get a ticket like this?” I had to wonder if the ticket was authentic. Plus, would they let me in with someone else’s name on the ticket?

Here’s what had happened. Twenty minutes earlier, she had slipped off to grab the tickets ordered by those in our group who wanted to attend the actual  premiere on Saturday evening. While Silvija stood in line, an exotic-looking woman came up to her, saw her Smithsonian badge, and asked if anyone in her group had a love for ballet or music? If so, Silvija was to give the ticket to that person. And then, the lady disappeared.

Wild, right? So with our music-loving folks already set to attend the premiere, and all in the group poised to drink in the fantastic chandeliers and inlaid floors of Maria Theresa’s dazzling palace, I was the one left. I stopped fighting, wandered across the street, around the block, and into the gorgeous foyer of the Vienna State Opera.

The production was grand, for sure. The set was beguiling, the costumes interesting, and the dancing superb, with complex choreography by Martin Schläpfer being a trendy mix of modern and classical ballet, replete with enough crossovers of style and geometrical formations that Merce Cunningham, Agnes de Mille, George Balanchine, and Petipa would feel right at home. (After all, they bequeathed this art to us.)

But here’s the thing: my ticket was on the parquette (the main floor). And not just that. The seat was down in front. And not just that. It was on the first row. But there was more.

Picture the conductor, the Milanese specialist in 18th-century music Maestro Giovanni Antonini, his podium set flush against the bar separating the orchestra from the audience. My seat was the first one left of the middle aisle–literally an arm’s length behind the conductor’s left elbow. In other words, I could reach out and touch him (I didn’t). I could hear his whispers to the orchestra.

Since it was still technically a rehearsal, verbal instructions issued from the maestro. He sang many a beautiful melodic line. The players were relaxed, joking, and not hiding their tender emotional response to the music (especially their delight at certain passages). Antonini turned often, his face easily visible. This meant I followed his communications to the left side of the orchestra, from his raised eyebrows (“What happened to that passage, flutes? Let’s tighten that up tomorrow night!”) to his crinkly nose and grins (“I didn’t expect that to happen, first violins. Very nice.”). You see, even within a fully notated work like The Seasons, a spirit of improvisation shows itself in many places, particularly within lines of the soloists and the soprano instruments.

I know this was a ballet. But, quite frankly, for me, it was a performance of Haydn’s oratorio with balletic accompaniment. Several members of my group who attend Saturday’s gala premiere had the same response. They were excited by everything and liked it very much, but they took home with them more of Haydn’s music than the dance they had witnessed.

It makes sense, though. Antonini is a master of Haydn’s musical language. With his ensemble in Italy, he is recording all of the Haydn Symphonies in anticipation of the composer’s Tricentennial in 2032. His interpretation of The Seasons had a communicative power that drew listeners back to Classical  Vienna. The performance caused me to reflect on the time when I first studied Haydn’s last major piano sonata, probably while getting my masters. I had struggled to grasp the musical rhetoric expressed by Haydn’s notes. I simply did not yet know enough history, art, literature, design, or architecture of the period to “get” it. Quite frankly, I wasn’t sure I liked Haydn all that much. Wasn’t Mozart much nicer?

Well, fast forward a lot of decades. Those blanks have been filled in by decades of academic work and research, as well as countless experiences in palaces, museums and broad travel. Today, Haydn’s music is among my favorites. Still, it had been a long time since I had heard a substantial work by Haydn performed at such a level.

There’s a reason for the term “windfall” (with its literal meaning of wood or fruit blown down by the wind, and thus free for the taking). Sometimes things like this ticket do drop from the wind into our laps. And that makes them all the more tasty. Beyond that, to be honest, I have always found Vienna overwhelming. And not necessarily inviting. At one’s fingertips stands a complex of grandiose architecture, posh hotels and restaurants, spiffy, efficient facilities, first-class theaters (where getting tickets is nearly impossible), and museums holding an impossible percentage of the world’s greatest artistic treasures. Where does one connect with all of this as a visitor?

On that morning, I found my connection through this performance. Seated in one of the world’s most hallowed halls at the elbow of someone able to probe the majesty of Haydn’s music, humbled by the good fortune that befell me when an unknown woman handed a ticket over to another unknown woman, Vienna became mine.