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Peter Grimes
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« on: 11:29:15, 11-08-2008 » |
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"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."
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richard barrett
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« Reply #1 on: 11:32:09, 11-08-2008 » |
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I always thought it was a Dutch habit (which we've touched on before on another thread).
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pim_derks
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« Reply #2 on: 11:42:25, 11-08-2008 » |
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It became a Dutch habit, Richard. In the 1930s there was only a standing ovation if the performance was out standing. I do believe the "peculiar war-whoops" mentioned by Mr Billington are an American phenomemon.  |
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"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
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richard barrett
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« Reply #3 on: 11:46:30, 11-08-2008 » |
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I do believe the "peculiar war-whoops" mentioned by Mr Billington are an American phenomemon. I think you're right. They haven't yet reached the kind of venues I most often frequent though. |
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George Garnett
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« Reply #4 on: 11:54:07, 11-08-2008 » |
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I do believe the "peculiar war-whoops" mentioned by Mr Billington are an American phenomemon. What is even curiouser in my experience is that the war-whoopers are often the people who have, until that point, made clear that they are bored by the whole thing. I don't understand the world any more.  |
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« Last Edit: 11:59:46, 11-08-2008 by George Garnett »
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #5 on: 12:33:03, 11-08-2008 » |
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For those of us who gained much of our early opera experience in the bench-seats in the ENO balcony, the reason for standing up rapidly at the end of the performance had much more to do with restoring circulation to the behind, than with the standard of the performance ....
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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Reiner Torheit
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« Reply #6 on: 13:13:41, 11-08-2008 » |
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What is even curiouser in my experience is that the war-whoopers are often the people who have, until that point, made clear that they are bored by the whole thing.
I think Billington's point about self-hypnosis into believing the show had truly been worth the $200 seats comes into play at that point  much more to do with restoring circulation to the behind
 Especially PARSIFAL on a hot and humid June evening... |
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
- Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
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perfect wagnerite
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« Reply #7 on: 13:17:11, 11-08-2008 » |
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much more to do with restoring circulation to the behind
Especially PARSIFAL on a hot and humid June evening... Despairing whispered (but still clearly audible) comment once heard in Coliseum balcony during performance of Boris Godunov (which ENO used to do with one interval): "God, these seats are SEVERE!" |
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At every one of these [classical] concerts in England you will find rows of weary people who are there, not because they really like classical music, but because they think they ought to like it. (Shaw, Don Juan in Hell)
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Milly Jones
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« Reply #8 on: 13:21:30, 11-08-2008 » |
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Standing ovation? Nah - you can't beat a good Mexican wave.
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We pass this way but once. This is not a rehearsal!
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richard barrett
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« Reply #9 on: 13:22:12, 11-08-2008 » |
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"God, these seats are SEVERE!"
My first experience of live Wagner was promming at Covent Garden for Meistersinger. Never again! |
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time_is_now
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« Reply #10 on: 13:24:55, 11-08-2008 » |
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My first experience of live Wagner was promming at Covent Garden for Meistersinger. So was mine! (Or my second maybe: I also sat in the gods for Parsifal at ENO around the same time, I can't remember which came first.) |
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The city is a process which always veers away from the form envisaged and desired, ... whose revenge upon its architects and planners undoes every dream of mastery. It is [also] one of the sites where Dasein is assigned the impossible task of putting right what can never be put right. - Rob Lapsley
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Ron Dough
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« Reply #11 on: 13:36:02, 11-08-2008 » |
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Re the 'war-whoops'.
The big UK tour of Chess (1990-91) rarely had more than a few of the audience standing, but war-whoops were not at all uncommon. The peculiar casting requirements of the show (classically-trained as well as standard 'West End' voices and rock singers) led to more than one fracas backstage, since several of the non-classical fraternity were not averse to whooping back in return, a practice derided so disdainfully by the opera boys that I've sometimes wondered whether they've not been stalking TOP in later life.
Aren't they basically just a modern LCD version of the old 'bravo', though?
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Peter Grimes
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« Reply #12 on: 14:14:28, 11-08-2008 » |
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I don't understand why we have to applaud these people at all.
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"On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."
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George Garnett
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« Reply #13 on: 14:20:09, 11-08-2008 » |
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I don't understand why we have to applaud these people at all.
Time for a poll? 1. Mute  2. Whooper  3. Standing Ovation   |
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« Last Edit: 14:41:06, 11-08-2008 by George Garnett »
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Ted Ryder
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« Reply #14 on: 14:27:58, 11-08-2008 » |
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I don't understand why we have to applaud these people at all.
I don't think "these people" is a very pleasant phrase but I agree it would be very refreshing just to have a respectful silence at the end of a serious play. George, I vote for "mute" |
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I've got to get down to Sidcup.
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