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He was a tyrant. By all accounts, he had no problem beaming his baton at you if you squeaked an incorrect note or hurling the score at you if your reed was maladjusted. He had no sympathy for singers either. If he thought you weren't projecting or enuciating well, he would jump out of the pit and onto the stage and grab your jaw to show you what you should be doing with your mouth, besides kissing his ass.

He could have been a Leonard Berstein, or a Sir Henry Wood: both phenomenal conductors, both a bit crazy and lacking finesse when it came to criticism. But he wasn't and will not be. He has been and always will be a B-list conductor. I might even call him a C-list conductor. His resume reads of small town community symphonies and village festivals. None of which have seemed to instill any sense of humility in the man.

Knowing the stories behind the man who stood at the helm of the Kansas City Lyric Opera for 40 years, I was all but giddy to see for myself the man behind the myth.

But what I saw on Friday night was a shell, albeit a portly waddling shell, of the monster known as Russell Patterson.

His arthritis and weight issues kept him from doing a full bow to the roaring crowd at Washburn Universities White Concert hall in Topeka. He needed the help of the concertmaster just to make it up the 8 inches to the podium.

And his conducting. Oh, the conducting. If he didn't look like he was lifting 5 lb weights while holding himself up on the back rail of the podium, he looked downright bored by the whole occasion.

Here, in small-minded, boorish and uncultured Topeka, was a festival that has it's roots in a 20 year old idea that some of the best classical musicians meet up in central America to have a "jam session" for a week. They called it the Sunflower Music Festival. And even with the worst conducting I've seen to date, they made the most sonorous sounds I've heard yet in Topeka, outside of my own home CD player.

Handel's Water Music was light and airy while Mozart's 21st piano concerto was sublime.

The audience noticed. They stood up after ever piece.

Poor souls. This kind of music is obviously a rare treat for them.

Myself, I'm just darn lucky. Here I sit in St. Louis. Monday I saw a small section of 1st century Rome pop out of the grounds of Forest Park in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar by the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival. That morning I went to see the Chihuly glass exhibit set in the incredible grounds of the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Then last night I got to sit front and center to see Opera Theatre St. Louis' interpretation of the first opera I ever saw: The Barber of Seville. (it was also a small birthday treat since my birthday was Monday and the last time I saw it I stood for 3 hours in the 4th balcony) It was also appropriate that while the Staatsoper of Vienna took a classical, period reading of the opera, St. Louis decided to put it in 1920's Spain, but set against and very post-modern backdrop.

Today I saw a very cute, very well sung Hansel and Gretel. Tonight I see the American premier of Jane Eyre and tomorrow, Street Scene.

Not to mention, all the time in between I get to spend with my brother, hanging out with my sister at the lesbian bar, having dinner with my aunt, chatting up late nights with my mom and spending any free time in places like Tower Grove Park, or Forest Park, or the Central West End or shopping the Soulard Farmers Market.

I may be gone for a while. This Friday I head to a camp for underprivileged inner-city kids in Springfield, Illinois and then to a camp for kids with cancer the next week.

And feel free to donate generously to either camps as your birthday present to me.

Love!