I wonder how fair Mr Billington is being here. I’ve no doubt his experience of the USA is much wider than mine, but at the one US orchestral concert I attended (in Texas) there was hearty applause but no standing ovation; and no premature applause or clapping between movements either. In Amsterdam, though, the s.o. does appear to be
de rigeur – and therefore effectively meaningless as MB suggests. By remaining in my seat after a Concertgebouw gig I’m probably marking myself as foreign just as surely as if I were to wear a union jack T-shirt with “where’s the nearest knocking shop?” printed on it (well, we are doing stereotypes!). I can’t say whether it’s a Dutch habit, though, having never patronised the concert halls of Utrecht, den Haag etc. As I've commented a few times, the habit seems to be creeping in at the Cultureville Phil, too.
I have a lot of sympathy with MB’s feeling that these exaggerrated displays are rooted in the desire of some audience members to pretend
they are in showbiz. I suspect this also applies to some other behaviour such as clapping between movements and talking during the performance. It’s done by a certain kind of person every time they get the opportunity to make themselves the centre of attention. It’s particularly noticeable in broadcasts of ‘stand up’ comedy where the whooping and whistling starts before the performer has opened her/his mouth and often drowns out parts of the act.
We all need encouragement, and many actors are pretty fragile beings: applause is like mothers' milk, nourishing and comforting. Slog our guts out night after night to be greeted by stony silence? No thank you.
I wonder, then, what happens when the encouragement is replaced by conditioned responses. I suppose you must be able to distinguish between sincere and insincere encouragement but surely it must be a distraction.
