Orchestra pit

On the stage of the Gotham gloom reigned. . . . Johnson Miller was pacing the gangway between the orchestra pit and the first row of the orchestra chairs.

Thirty-four years ago a gaunt young Russian with a crew haircut took over the job as chief conductor in the orchestra pit of Moscow's Imperial Grand Theatre.

An audience member at the Metropolitan Opera sprinkled a powdery substance — what the police said may have been the ashes of his mentor — into the orchestra pit during an intermission of a performance on Saturday, setting off a police investigation and the cancellation of the rest of that opera.