Verizon Hall

The Philadelphia Orchestra has hit upon a way to firm up attendance for its concerts at the Mann: free lawn tickets. This past summer, attendance, measured on a per-concert basis, was up over last year by 42 percent. An average of 4,221 listeners heard the orchestra each night it played in Fairmount Park, up from last summer's 2,968. Attendance was also slightly improved at the orchestra's other regular summer venue, the Saratoga Performing Arts Center near Albany, officials said.

Lucky for Philadelphia that Kimmel Center audiences aren't as exuberantly destructive as sports fans after a World Series victory. Otherwise, Verizon Hall might have been trashed Monday night after a similarly prestigious victory, when locally based Grammy Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Jennifer Higdon took her bows for her Violin Concerto after its Philadelphia premiere by the Curtis Symphony Orchestra and Hilary Hahn. Mayhem was under control. No briefcases or cough drops were flung.

Acoustically speaking, the most striking sound emanating from Verizon Hall these days is silence. At nearly six years old, Philadelphia's orchestra hall is still troublesome, and its many stewards are quiet on the question of whether a solution is in the works. So is this it? Is the hall's sound fixed in its not-quite-good-enough state? Will Verizon Hall ever achieve the greatness planners promised, and, if so, does anyone have the wits, will and musical authority to get it there?

You could call this weekend's concerts a tale of three cities: Vienna, Berlin and London. But riches from the musical mecca of Vienna take prominence. Carlos Kalmar, the recently appointed musical director of the Oregon Symphony, returns as guest conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra. Born in Uruguay, he was accomplished enough as a violinist to be enrolled in Vienna's Academy of Music at age 15. And his concert closer - Richard Strauss' Suite from the opera "Der Rosenkavalier" - is a valentine to the Imperial years of that city.

AS YOU TURN THE corner of Broad and Spruce streets or emerge from the subway concourse, the Sid seems to soar into the sky. The sun glints off the accordionlike folds of the 150-foot-high curved glass skylight, giving Rafael Vinoly's bold block-long structure a striking contrast to the traditional buildings surrounding it. On the Broad Street side, where school buses are lined up for the daytime theater shows, a canopy housing the building's restaurant...

The Philly Pops has become the second local performance group to sign a contract with the Regional Performing Arts Center and the first to agree officially to perform in Verizon Hall, the main venue in the under-construction, $255 million Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. By signing on with the performing-arts center, the Pops becomes one of two resident companies to perform in 2,500-seat Verizon Hall, the largest venue in the Kimmel Center, which is scheduled to open in December at Broad and Spruce Streets.

As soon as the Kimmel Center opens, you're invited. Between Dec. 16 and Dec. 31, more than 130 free performances will be presented, as well as some ticketed attractions. This gift to the city is a unique chance to check out the facility, which includes Verizon Hall, Perelman Theater and the vast Commonwealth Plaza, all at once. Support for these attractions comes from Lincoln Financial Group, which is also subsidizing opening night, jazz programs next year, and a Dec. 20 program for Philadelphia high school children with jazzman Wynton Marsalis.

Few American cities can boast having three accomplished local orchestras play on the same weekend - and in the same hall. First up is the Philadelphia Orchestra, with music director Christoph Eschenbach back in town for the final four weeks of the season. The orchestra is hosting the brilliant violinist Gil Shaham, a favorite here since his teens, in the rich tapestry of the Brahms Violin Concerto. The program of masterpieces concludes with the explosive, colorful Prokofiev Fifth Symphony (2 p.m. today and 8 p.m. tomorrow, Verizon Hall at the Kimmel Center, $10-$84.

Some of the world's major talents visit town this weekend, cramming a schedule already packed with local artists. Pianist Martha Argerich, considered by many the greatest around these days, performs a duet recital with pianist Nelson Friere. (Argerich returns next weekend as the Philadelphia Orchestra's soloist.) These masters from Argentina and Brazil, respectively, will play a monster program that includes Brahms' Haydn Variations, Rachmaninoff's Op. 17 Suite and Lutoslawski's Paganini Variations and Schubert's D.951 Rondo and the two-piano reduction of Ravel's "La Valse" (8 tonight, Verizon Hall, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts, Broad and Spruce streets, $29-$79, 215-893-1999)

GOP's green record Re: "GOP tries the color green," editorial, Jan. 30: It's disappointing that you paint Republican lawmakers as not interested or concerned with environmental protection. Gov. Rendell was fortunate to inherit a Republican-controlled General Assembly that has enacted historic environmental statutes in recent years. In addition to Pennsylvania's award-winning brownfields remediation program and water-resource planning legislation - two proposals that sputtered for years - it was under Republican Gov. Tom Ridge and a Republican-controlled General Assembly that Growing Greener was established.