Beauty, Crystallized; Appreciation, Symbolized

Just leafing through photos on a lazy winter evening.  I took this one at the Metropolitan Opera in December, when Adella and I saw Philip Glass's opera Akhnaten.  The crystal chandeliers in the lobby took our breath away before we could glimpse the incredibly elegant performance of Glass's masterpiece, which he wrote in 1984. 

The chandeliers were a gift from Austria "as a symbol of the gratitude which her people wish to express for the generous aid they received from the United States during the trying years after World War II."