Alice Tully Hall is the talk of this talky town. Having served since 1969 as a comfortably dowdy haven for chamber music at Lincoln Center, the house has undergone a spectacular $159m transformation.

It looks sleek and spacious now, and, we are told, it accommodates new degrees of acoustic clarity and warmth. Unfortunately, one could not judge that on Thursday. The ambitious attraction, semi-staged, was The Firebrand of Florence , a relatively obscure collaboration between Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin. In spite of its showbizzy attitudes and comic platitudes, it remains an essentially operatic challenge. Someone decided, however, that it could not reach 1,000 listeners without amplification. Microphones made everything sound harsh and tinny. Blast.