I timed it perfectly to arrive at a seat just as the chorus was departing its upstage loft after the first piece, as I saw no reason to have their voices interfere with the pleasure of listening to the symphony, just as I don’t like it when people in the theater talk during a performance.

I did get to see that the departing singers were masked, though not in the style of those on the television show, such as Nick Lachey as the winner Piglet in the recent finale, and probably not, unfortunately for the purpose of muting their voices like one of the brass players, whose current “normal’ placement on stage is in the same loft, so that they won’t spew viral particles on the rest of the orchestra.

I still got to listen to Barber and Brahms, without a hint of rain or the siren accompaniments of two days earlier, replaced this time by the off-key sound of overhead helicopters, and also without the hint of a cicada chorus, Chicago seemingly having been spared this year despite the fact that we have reached, per Climate Central, the necessary ground temperature and rainfall to cue their emergence.

On the way home I saw a sign for a psychic, with walk-ins welcome, and considered it for a moment, but, after peeking in the doorway, I dismissed it as a scam, as a real psychic would know that no one would want to climb two flights of steep stairs for a reading.