Rick Nelson and Claude Peck dispense unasked-for advice about clothing, etiquette, culture, relationships, grooming and more.

RN: Stanislaw Skrowaczewski is my new role model.

CP: That nonagenarian, who led the Minnesota Orchestra in the 1960s and '70s, is a marvel. Stan the Angular Man appears to have sprung directly from the pages of a Tim Burton storyboard.

RN: He's nearly twice my age, and yet he seems to possess four times my energy.

CP: At last weekend's opening concert, I loved Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony, but nothing showed off the Minnesota Orchestra's sections quite so well as Stan's orchestration of that Bach Toccata and Fugue. Hear now the xylophone!

RN: Absolutely. The only missing element was a Moog synthesizer. It was the first piece performed when Orchestra Hall debuted in 1974, so it seems fitting that it played that same role for last weekend's reopening.

The outside of the refurbished Orchestra Hall

CP: Which brings me to my central query. Whadja think of the new hall at 1111 Nicollet Mall?

RN: So happy to see the cubes again. I'm still not sold on the gray balconies and black chairs. Elegant, yes, but maybe a tad somber for the room's electric pulse.

CP: Just as a medium brown shoe works with a dark gray pant, the new color scheme inside the hall is growing on me. At first, I was shocked and angry to lose all the burnt orange, which reminded me of my mom's two-door Nova in the early 1970s. Now I'm at peace.

RN: After several decades of elbow-to-elbow intermissions, the new lobby — which looks like a super-deluxe Westin — is impressively roomy.

CP: It's all about circulation, and the KPMB-designed lobby seemed to accommodate opening-night's capacity crowd with room to spare.

RN: The layout isn't remarkably different from Orchestra Hall 1.0, it's just way better. The people-watching opportunities are much improved. When I spied a full-length winter-white fur coat from my balcony perch, that's when I knew for certain that the orchestra was back in business.

CP: I know the guy with that coat. I pledge never to stand 'neath the lights that bathe the lobby's Marquette Avenue side in a garish fluo­rescent glow.

RN: Considering the audience's median age is about 102, you'd think that every light bulb would be covered in a soft pink gel.

CP: I know. The oldsters are paying the tab: They should get the flattering light. The concert hall itself is beautifully lit, and very different. The undersides of the tumbling dice are bathed in a bluish, D-minor shade that had me thinking, "What evildoer lurks in the basement?"

RN: That lighting took me right back to the Moog. A female friend shared a major improvement. She said every gal in the restroom was in shock — happily — about the elimination of the dreaded ladies' room line, thanks to the addition of so many toilets.

CP: With so many new bars sprinkled about, who wants to waste their entire entr'acte queuing for the loo?

E-mail: witheringglance@startribune.com

Twitter: @claudepeck and @RickNelsonStrib