Hi Andy.  Early '70s is probably right.  Before I went to college, anyway.  The Proms, as you say, seems to have survived!

Must get to bed now... back to work tomorrow - for one day before heading south for the Jansons Strauss/Sibelius Prom.

Playing Devil's Advocate for a moment, how would members have felt about this concert if the self-same programme had been performed by, let's say, Bryn Terfel and Toby Spence?   Would that have classed as "our classical lads letting their hair down a little", or would we still be less than gruntled about the whole business?

Let's remember that - since its name has already been pulled into the discussion above - the ROH was most happy to stage Sondheim's SWEENEY TODD not long ago,  and the same piece also got a (rather better) staging from Opera North some while before that.  Bernstein's CANDIDE (kitted-out with "classical" performers like Thomas Allen) turned up on R3 last year (was it in The Proms or not?  Not being "there", I tend to forget, it all comes out of RadioPlayer for me..).  And the amalgam of both of the preceding composer's work, WEST SIDE STORY,  won wild success when reworked for a "classical" team of soloists. 

I tend to side with Richard here, in asking what the reason for including the concert was?  There is no question that Michael Ball is a popular performer (wasn't he just in an ENO-staged musical?) who has a huge and loyal - some might say "doting" - public who are guaranteed to turn up.  And, to be fair, he didn't only sing his warhorse numbers from his own shows, but also sang other stuff which - to some - may have fleshed-out his credentials a little.  It seems a bit rough to take a crack at Alfie Boe - who was an ROH Young Artist - merely because he's spread his wings and done non-classical stuff....  Saint Bryn of Terfel, who can do no wrong, has done just the same,  and although his Numero Uno fan isn't here to say so, so has Thomas Hampson.  Why should it be "ok" for Dame Kiri and Jose Carreras to sing West Side Story (in a manner entirely unimagined by its composer) but not the other way around?  Before anyone leaps in with the "my dear, opera is an entirely different... you have to study for years, you know..." argument,  the "deficiency" we hear when Ball sings opera is no greater than the stylistic discrepancy when Dame Kiri sings Maria in WEST SIDE STORY...  it's just that we like Dame Kiri and she is "ours", whereas Ball...  isn't.  There's something slightly uncomfortably tribal in all this

Of course, if one were the Proms Supremo, it would be laughably easy to create a "simulacrum Proms", packed with sure-fire sellouts like Michael Ball every night.  I'm sure we could all make our own lists, but the Rodrigo Guitar Concerto (with any famous guitarist), a Berlin Cabaret evening with Ute Lemper and John Harle,  something based around Elvis Costello, Swan Lake (optimally staged, I'm sure the National Ballet of Blotvania aren't expensive), A Night With Anna Netrebko, Gergiev conducting [anything]... basically it all revolves around the names and not the music.  (It was certainly my own gripe that Ball's performance was about Ball, and not what he sang... he could have sung selections from Harry Lauder and George Formby and people would still have gone).  But would that be a "Festival"?   Isn't that just the same old thing you can see elsewhere any night of the week?   Here I part company with those who say that it's "making it available for a fiver" that makes the difference... I don't think it does (or at least, it's a mistake to make cheapness the only differentiating factor). I think a "Festival" ought to be brimful of "only chance to see" stuff.   Not necessarily EMILIA DI LIVERPOOL, but more things in which the financial clout (excuse me but 5000 punters brings-in a nice box office receipt..) and reputation of the event enables you to put on something audacious and attention-grabbing.  And couldn't we - once in a while - also have a theme running through the Festival which wasn't the "anniversary of so-and-so",  but something a bit more imaginative?  For example, a year in which many of the pieces were inspired by scientific innovations?   Or American music (gawd knows, they need the positive PR at the moment)? Or... well, you're a clever bunch, you'll have good ideas of your own...

Of course there is a point in having "star" performers... very often they'll give stupendous performances, as well as filling the house.  But I think where many of us baulk above is the kind of programming which says "Hire Star X, and tell him he can sing the BBC Charter to the melody of the Proper Gradual for the Festival of St Diomede if he wants - whatever will get him to sign".

Well I was there, though I went principally for Intermoduation, who shared the bill. It was at that concert that I met the American (now Australian?) composer Warren Burt. He was sharp enough to recognise that my release of several locusts into the RAH was neither a parody of the Stones's release of butterflies into Hyde Park, nor a protest against Soft Machine, but an improptu 'performance' if a work by LaMonte Young. Those locusts had seen better days.

Personally I quite like Bryn Terfel's voice, and am more than happy listening to him singing his usual classical and operatic repertoire, but I have to say, I think that as his voice is very 'classical' it can be a bit of an overkill for more traditional music and the musicals he's been venturing to perform recently.  Same for me goes for Dame Kiri for me I'm afraid, but then again I'm not the greatest fan of her voice anyway...

The problem with Michael Ball for me is that I don't like his voice, and I find he generally has some seious intonation problems...so I quickly turned over from BBC4 last night when I realised what was on... Not really sure how so many people love listening to him! 

I find that quite amazing! I would undoubtedly have been too young to go myself, but if by some miracle it happened today, I would be in the queue!

Ah... but here's the difference. If (by some miracle) Soft Machine played a gig today, I would pay "real" money to see it. I wouldn't need a £5 deal to tempt me in.

On the other hand, if an orchestra was playing an obscure piece by a composer I had never heard of and the tickets were just a fiver... I would be tempted to go, "just to see".

That's the difference: if you're a fan, you don't need a cheap deal, a subsidy, or whatever. You find a way to do it. (I once flew to Stockholm to see Deep Purple. The whole trip cost me a fortune, and I'm not really an enthusiastic traveller, but it was my only chance to see them that year, so I did it without a second thought.) If you're not a fan, the subsidy provides that little bit of incentive to try something new. And as I understand it, that is the whole point of the Proms?

If the Michael Ball Prom was full of Michael Ball fans who already pay £40 to see each of his shows, that's a bad use of a Prom evening.

On the other hand, if the Michael Ball Prom was full of Beethoven fans who were taking the advantage of the £5 tickets "just to see", then I would say the Prom was fulfilling the BBC's remit to educate and the Proms' goal of bringing music to those who would otherwise be deprived of it!


(Does any of that make any sense?   )

I do now, though there was a period of a few months when the first film took me beyond what I had read of the book (and it blew my mind). In the intervening years I have read the book many more times, and seen just how much of what makes Middle-earth what it is they left out, for such reasons as 'too many new characters for too short a period of time'...

Yes, it made sense to me IRF. Michael Ball fans already get to hear him on his tours and as I said earlier the radio weekly shows that are broadacast on Radio 2 as Friday Night Is Music Night (often presented/compered by Aled Jones) are the place for this genre not the proms. Mind you, FNIMN shows are (always or sometimes?) free.

It all makes sense, IRF.  I'm in the uncomfortable position of arguing against my instinct here (tough work trying to be fair-minded isn't it?!).  I agree with almost all the points that have been made against the MB Prom.  The thing is, there are other points that have to be considered.  I don't think it's fair to assume that "the Michael Ball Prom was full of Michael Ball fans who already pay £40 to see each of his shows".  It might have been full of people who would otherwise only ever hear him on Radio 2 or on CD.  That's why I'm rather more concerned that this kind of stuff is occupying the prime Radio 3 evening slot than that it gets one of 70-odd proms allotted to it.  I think it's unlikely there'd be too many Beethoven fans at the MB Prom just out of curiosity as to what it was like.  I suspect most Beethoven fans think they already know what this repertoire is like and some of them will have been there because they like it as well as liking Beethoven.  And most of them will, like me, not be listening because they know they won't like it (I really can't understand why some people seem to have tuned in *knowing* they'd hate it).  In that respect it is, as you say, rather different from Soft Machine.  But what message goes out to the Michael Ball fans who might be dipping their toes in the Beethoven pool.  To some of them it will sound a bit like "Welcome to the house of culture, which is open to all: but if you still want to indulge your other, rather more vulgar tastes we'd rather you did it out of our sight"

Let's face it, the Proms always has a fair bit of lighter material in each season - film music, operetta, children's Proms etc etc.  There'll also be music that deserves to be played but isn't.  But, realistically, we're not going to create space for Malcolm Arnold, Elizabeth Lutyens, Havergal Brian etc, etc, etc by elbowing out a novelty Prom.

 
Not the whole point, surely.  The Proms audience consists largely of people who come year after year to see bands which are attracted by the festival's unique reputation.  Most of the audiences are probably not trying something new at all - they're taking advantage of the Proms' status and subsidy to enjoy some wonderful music.